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THE   WRITINGS    OF 
JAMES    RUSSELL   LOWELL 
IN  PROSE  AND   POETRY 
VOLUME  IV 


LITERARY  ESSAYS 


IV. 


BY 


JAMES   RUSSELL  LOWELL 


BOSTON  AND   NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

<£fe  iitof rs'ide  press,  £amfcnt>ge 


Copyright,  1871,  1876, 1890, 
BY  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL. 

Copyright,  1899, 
BY  MABEL  LOWELL  BURNETT. 

All  rights  reserved. 


The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.  8.  A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  &  Company. 


College 
Library 

00 


CONTENTS 

POPE       ••••••,.  .        .       1 

MILTON        ..•,......58 

DANTE     •        •».......          118 

SPENSEK     ..*....  .  265 

WOBDSWOKTH        .  ,       «  .  854 


.O60161 


LITERARY  ESSAYS 


POPE 

1871 

IN  1675  Edward  Phillips,  the  elder  of  Milton's 
nephews,  published  his  Theatrum  Poetarum.  In 
his  Preface  and  elsewhere  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  he  reflected  the  aesthetic  principles  and  liter 
ary  judgments  of  his  now  illustrious  uncle,  who  had 
died  in  obscurity  the  year  before.1  The  great  poet 
who  gave  to  English  blank  verse  the  grandeur  and 
compass  of  organ-music,  and  who  in  his  minor  poems 
kept  alive  the  traditions  of  Fletcher  and  Shake 
speare,  died  with  no  foretaste,  and  yet  we  may 
believe  as  confident  as  ever,  of  that  "  immortality 
of  fame  "  which  he  tells  his  friend  Diodati  he  was 
"  meditating  with  the  help  of  Heaven "  in  his 
youth.  He  who  may  have  seen  Shakespeare,  who 
doubtless  had  seen  Fletcher,  and  who  perhaps  per 
sonally  knew  Jonson,2  lived  to  see  that  false  school 
of  writers  whom  he  qualified  as  "  good  rhymists, 
but  no  poets,"  at  once  the  idols  and  the  victims  of 
the  taste  they  had  corrupted.  As  he  saw,  not  with- 

1  This  was  Thomas  Warton's  opinion. 

2  Milton,  a  London  boy,  was  in  his  eighth,  seventeenth,  and 
twenty-ninth  years,  respectively,  when  Shakespeare  (1616),  Flet 
cher  (1625),  and  B.  Jonson  (1637)  died. 


2  POPE 

out  scorn,  how  they  found  universal  hearing,  while 
he  slowly  won  his  audience  fit  though  few,  did  he 
ever  think  of  the  hero  of  his  own  epic  at  the  ear  of 
Eve  ?  It  is  not  impossible  ;  but  however  that  may 
be,  he  sowed  in  his  nephew's  book  the  dragon's 
teeth  of  that  long  war  which,  after  the  lapse  of 
a  century  and  a  half,  was  to  end  in  the  expulsion 
of  the  usurping  dynasty  and  the  restoration  of  the 
ancient  and  legitimate  race  whose  claim  rested  on 
the  grace  of  God.  In  the  following  passage  surely 
the  voice  is  Milton's,  though  the  hand  be  that  of 
Phillips :  "  Wit,  ingenuity,  and  learning  in  verse, 
even  elegancy  itself,  though  that  comes  nearest,  are 
one  thing  ;  true  native  poetry  is  another,  in  which 
there  is  a  certain  air  and  spirit,  which,  perhaps, 
the  most  learned  and  judicious  in  other  arts  do  not 
perfectly  apprehend ;  much  less  is  it  attainable  by 
any  art  or  study."  The  man  who  speaks  of  ele 
gancy  as  coming  nearest,  certainly  shared,  if  he  was 
not  repeating,  the  opinions  of  him  who  thirty  years 
before  had  said  that  "  decorum  "  (meaning  a  higher 
or  organic  unity)  was  "  the  grand  masterpiece  to 
observe  "  in  poetry.1 

It  is  upon  this  text  of  Phillips  (as  Chalmers  has 
remarked)  that  Joseph  Warton  bases  his  classifi 
cation  of  poets  in  the  dedication  to  Young  of  the  first 
volume  of  his  essay  on  the  Genius  and  Writings  of 
Pope,  published  in  1756.  That  was  the  earliest  pub 
lic  and  official  declaration  of  war  against  the  reign 
ing  mode,  though  private  hostilities  and  reprisals  had 
been  going  on  for  some  time.  Addison's  panegyric 
1  In  his  Tractate  on  Education. 


POPE  8 

of  Milton  in  the  Spectator  was  a  criticism,  not  the 
less  damaging  because  indirect,  of  the  superficial 
poetry  then  in  vogue.  His  praise  of  the  old  bal 
lads  condemned  by  innuendo  the  artificial  elabora 
tion  of  the  drawing-room  pastoral  by  contrasting  it 
with  the  simple  sincerity  of  nature.  Himself  inca 
pable  of  being  natural  except  in  prose,  he  had  an  in 
stinct  for  the  genuine  virtues  of  poetry  as  sure  as 
that  of  Gray.  Thomson's  "  Winter  "  (1726)  was  a 
direct  protest  against  the  literature  of  Good  Society, 
going  as  it  did  to  prove  that  the  noblest  society 
was  that  of  one's  own  mind  heightened  by  the 
contemplation  of  outward  nature.  What  Thomson's 
poetical  creed  was  may  be  surely  inferred  from  his 
having  modelled  his  two  principal  poems  on  Milton 
and  Spenser,  ignoring  rhyme  altogether  in  the 
"  Seasons,"  and  in  the  "  Castle  of  Indolence  "  reject 
ing  the  stiff  mould  of  the  couplet.  In  1744  came 
Akenside's  "  Pleasures  of  Imagination,"  whose  very 
title,  like  a  guide-post,  points  away  from  the  level 
highway  of  commonplace  to  mountain-paths  and 
less  domestic  prospects.  The  poem  was  stiff  and 
unwilling,  but  in  its  loins  lay  the  seed  of  nobler 
births,  and  without  it  the  "  Lines  written  at  Tintern 
Abbey  "  might  never  have  been.  Three  years  later 
Collins  printed  his  little  volume  of  Odes,  advocat 
ing  in  theory  and  exemplifying  in  practice  the  nat 
ural  supremacy  of  the  imagination  (though  he  called 
it  by  its  older  name  of  fancy)  as  a  test  to  distin 
guish  poetry  from  verse-making.  The  whole  Roman 
tic  School,  in  its  germ,  no  doubt,  but  yet  unmistaka 
bly  foreshadowed,  lies  already  in  the  "  Ode  on  the 


4  POPE 

Superstitions  of  the  Highlands."  He  was  the  first 
to  bring  back  into  poetry  something  of  the  antique 
fervor,  and  found  again  the  long-lost  secret  of  being 
classically  elegant  without  being  pedantically  cold. 
A  skilled  lover  of  music,1  he  rose  from  the  general 
sing-song  of  his  generation  to  a  harmony  that  had 
been  silent  since  Milton,  and  in  him,  to  use  his  own 
words, 

"  The  force  of  energy  is  found, 
And  the  sense  rises  on  the  wings  of  sound." 

But  beside  his  own  direct  services  in  the  reforma 
tion  of  our  poetry,  we  owe  him  a  still  greater  debt 
as  the  inspirer  of  Gray,  whose  "  Progress  of  Poesy," 
in  reach,  variety,  and  loftiness  of  poise,  overflies 
all  other  English  lyrics  like  an  eagle.  In  spite  of 
the  dulness  of  contemporary  ears,  preoccupied  with 
the  continuous  hum  of  the  popular'  hurdy-gurdy, 
it  was  the  prevailing  blast  of  Gray's  trumpet  that 
more  than  anything  else  called  men  back  to  the 
legitimate  standard.2  Another  poet,  Dyer,  whose 

*  Milton,  Collins,  and  Gray,  our  three  great  masters  of  harmony, 
were  all  musicians. 

2  Wordsworth,  who  recognized  forerunners  in  Thomson,  Collins, 
Dyer,  and  Burns,  and  who  chimes  in  with  the  popular  superstition 
about  Chatterton,  is  always  somewhat  niggardly  in  his  appreciation 
of  Gray.  Yet  he  owed  him  not  a  little.  Without  Gray's  tune  in 
his  ears,  his  own  noblest  Ode  would  have  missed  the  varied  mod 
ulation  which  is  one  of  its  main  charms.  Where  he  forgets  Gray, 
his  verse  sinks  to  something  like  the  measure  of  a  jig.  Perhaps  the 
suggestion  of  one  of  his  own  finest  lines, 

("  The  light  that  never  was  on  land  or  sea,") 
was  due  to  Gray's 

"  Orient  hues  unborrowed  of  the  sun." 
I  believe  it  has  not  been  noticed  that  among  the  verses  in  Gray's 


POPE  5 

"  Fleece  "  was  published  in  1753,  both  in  the  choice 
of  his  subject  and  his  treatment  of  it  gives  further 
proof  of  the  tendency  among  the  younger  genera 
tion  to  revert  to  simpler  and  purer  models.  Plainly 
enough,  Thomson  had  been  his  chief  model,  though 
there  are  also  traces  of  a  careful  study  of  Milton. 
Pope  had  died  in  1744,  at  the  height  of  his 
renown,  the  acknowledged  monarch  of  letters,  as 
supreme  as  Voltaire  when  the  excitement  and  ex 
posure  of  his  coronation-ceremonies  at  Paris  has 
tened  his  end  a  generation  later.  His  fame,  like 
Voltaire's,  was  European,  and  the  style  which  he 
had  carried  to  perfection  was  paramount  through 
out  the  cultivated  world.  The  new  edition  of  the 

Sonnet  on  the  Death  of  West,  which  Wordsworth  condemns  as  of 
no  value,  the  second  — 

"  And  reddening  Phosbus  lifts  his  golden  fires  "  — 
is  one  of  Gray's  happy  reminiscences  from  a  poet  in  some  respects 
greater  than  either  of  them :  — 

"  Jamque  rubrum  tremulis  jubar  ignibus  erigere  alte 
Cum  coeptat  natura." 

Lucret.,  iv.  404,  405. 

Gray's  taste  was  a  sensitive  divining-rod  of  the  sources  whether  of 
pleasing  or  profound  emotion  in  poetry.  Though  he  prized  pomp, 
he  did  not  undervalue  simplicity  of  subject  or  treatment,  if  only 
the  witch  Imagination  had  cast  her  spell  there.  Wordsworth  loved 
solitude  in  his  appreciations  as  well  as  in  his  daily  life,  and  was 
the  readier  to  find  merit  in  obscurity,  because  it  gave  him  the  plea 
sure  of  being  a  first  discoverer  all  by  himself.  Thus  he  addresses 
a  sonnet  to  John  Dyer.  But  Gray  was  one  of  "  the  pure  and  power 
ful  minds  "  who  had  discovered  Dyer  during  his  lifetime,  when  the 
discovery  of  poets  is  more  difficult.  In  1753  he  writes  to  Wai- 
pole  :  ' '  Mr.  Dyer  has  more  poetry  in  his  imagination  than  almost 
any  of  our  number,  but  rough  and  injudicious."  Dyer  has  one  fine 
verse,  — 

"  On  the  dark  level  of  adversity." 


6  POPE 

"  Dunciad,"  with  the  Fourth  Book  added,  pub 
lished  the  year  before  his  death,  though  the  sub 
stitution  of  Gibber  for  Theobald  made  the  poem 
incoherent,  had  yet  increased  his  reputation  and 
confirmed  the  sway  of  the  school  whose  recognized 
head  he  was,  by  the  poignancy  of  its  satire,  the  lu 
cidity  of  its  wit,  and  the  resounding,  if  somewhat 
uniform,  march  of  its  numbers.  He  had  been 
translated  into  other  languages  living  and  dead. 
Voltaire  had  long  before  pronounced  him  "  the 
best  poet  of  England,  and  at  present  of  all  the 
world."  1  It  was  the  apotheosis  of  clearness,  point, 
and  technical  skill,  of  the  ease  that  comes  of  prac 
tice,  not  of  the  fulness  of  original  power.  And 
yet,  as  we  have  seen,  while  he  was  in  the  very  plen 
itude  of  his  power,  there  was  already  a  widespread 
discontent,  a  feeling  that  what  "  comes  nearest," 
as  Phillips  calls  it,  may  yet  be  infinitely  far  from 
giving  those  profounder  and  incalculable  satisfac 
tions  of  which  the  soul  is  capable  in  poetry.  A 
movement  was  gathering  strength  which  prompted 

"  The  age  to  quit  their  clogs 
By  the  known  rules  of  ancient  liberty." 

Nor  was  it  wholly  confined  to  England.  Symptoms 
of  a  similar  reaction  began  to  show  themselves  on 
the  Continent,  notably  in  the  translation  of  Milton 
(1732)  and  the  publication  of  the  Nibelungen  Lied 
(1757)  by  Bodmer,  and  the  imitations  of  Thomson 
in  France.  Was  it  possible,  then,  that  there  was 

1  MS.  letter  of  Voltaire,  cited  by  Warburton  in  his  edition  of 
Pope,  vol.  iv.  p.  38,  note.  The  date  is  15th  October,  1726.  I  do 
not  find  it  in  Voltaire's  Correspondence. 


POPE  1 

anything  better  than  good  sense,  elegant  diction, 
and  the  highest  polish  of  style  ?  Could  there  be 
an  intellectual  appetite  which  antithesis  failed  to 
satisfy  ?  If  the  horse  would  only  have  faith  enough 
in  his  green  spectacles,  surely  the  straw  would  ac 
quire,  not  only  the  flavor,  but  the  nutritious  proper 
ties  of  fresh  grass.  The  horse  was  foolish  enough 
to  starve,  but  the  public  is  wiser.  It  is  surprising 
how  patiently  it  will  go  on,  for  generation  after 
generation,  transmuting  dry  stubble  into  verdure 
in  this  fashion. 

The  school  which  Boileau  founded  was  critical 
and  not  creative.  It  was  limited,  not  only  in  its 
essence,  but  by  the  capabilities  of  the  French  lan 
guage  and  by  the  natural  bent  of  the  French  mind, 
which  finds  a  predominant  satisfaction  in  phrases 
if  elegantly  turned,  and  can  make  a  despotism,  po 
litical  or  aesthetic,  palatable  with  the  pepper  of 
epigram.  The  style  of  Louis  XIV.  did  what  his 
armies  failed  to  do.  It  overran  and  subjugated 
Europe.  It  struck  the  literature  of  imagination 
with  palsy,  and  it  is  droll  enough  to  see  Voltaire, 
after  he  had  got  some  knowledge  of  Shakespeare, 
continually  endeavoring  to  reassure  himself  about 
the  poetry  of  the  grand  siecle,  and  all  the  time 
asking  himself,  "  Why,  in  the  name  of  all  the  gods 
at  once,  is  this  not  the  real  thing  ?  "  He  seems  to 
have  felt  that  there  was  a  dreadful  mistake  some 
where,  when  poetry  must  be  called  upon  to  prove 
itself  inspired,  above  all  when  it  must  demonstrate 
that  it  is  interesting,  all  appearances  to  the  con 
trary  notwithstanding.  Difficulty,  according  to 


8  POPE 

Voltaire,  is  the  tenth  Muse ;  but  how  if  there  were 
difficulty  in  reading  as  well  as  writing?  It  was 
something,  at  any  rate,  which  an  increasing  number 
of  persons  were  perverse  enough  to  feel  in  attempt 
ing  the  productions  of  a  pseudo-classicism,  the  clas 
sicism  of  red  heels  and  periwigs.  Even  poor  old 
Dennis  himself  had  arrived  at  a  kind  of  muddled 
notion  that  artifice  was  not  precisely  art,  that  there 
were  depths  in  human  nature  which  the  most  per 
fectly  manufactured  line  of  five  feet  could  not 
sound,  and  passionate  elations  that  could  not  be 
tuned  to  the  lullaby  seesaw  of  the  couplet.  The 
satisfactions  of  a  conventional  taste  were  very  well 
in  their  own  way,  but  were  they,  after  all,  the  high 
est  of  which  men  were  capable  who  had  obscurely 
divined  the  Greeks,  and  who  had  seen  Hamlet, 
Lear,  and  Othello  upon  the  stage  ?  Was  not 
poetry,  then,  something  which  delivered  us  from 
the  dungeon  of  actual  life,  instead  of  basely  recon 
ciling  us  with  it  ? 

A  century  earlier  the  school  of  the  cultists  had 
established  a  dominion,  ephemeral,  as  it  soon  ap 
peared,  but  absolute  while  it  lasted.  Du  Bartas, 
who  may,  perhaps,  as  fairly  as  any,  lay  claim  to  its 
paternity,1  had  been  called  divine,  and  similar  hon 
ors  had  been  paid  in  turn  to  Gongora,  Lilly,  and 
Marini,  who  were  in  the  strictest  sense  contempo 
raneous.  The  infection  of  mere  fashion  will  hardly 

1  Its  taste  for  verbal  affectations  is  to  be  found  in  the  Roman 
de  la  Rose,  and  (yet  more  absurdly  forced)  in  Gauthier  de  Coinsy ; 
but  in  Dn  Bartas  the  research  of  effect  not  seldom  subjugates  the 
thought  as  well  as  the  phrase. 


POPE  9 

account  satisfactorily  for  a  vogue  so  sudden  and  so 
widely  extended.  It  may  well  be  suspected  that 
there  was  some  latent  cause,  something  at  work 
more  potent  than  the  fascinating  mannerism  of 
any  single  author  in  the  rapid  and  almost  simul 
taneous  diffusion  of  this  purely  cutaneous  eruption. 
It  is  not  improbable  that,  in  the  revival  of  letters, 
men  whose  native  tongues  had  not  yet  attained  the 
precision  and  grace  only  to  be  acquired  by  long 
literary  usage,  should  have  learned  from  a  study  of 
the  Latin  poets  to  value  the  form  above  the  sub 
stance,  and  to  seek  in  mere  words  a  conjuring  prop 
erty  which  belongs  to  them  only  when  they  catch 
life  and  meaning  from  profound  thought  or  power 
ful  emotion.  Yet  this  very  devotion  to  expression 
at  the  expense  of  everything  else,  though  its  ex 
cesses  were  fatal  to  the  innovators  who  preached 
and  practised  it,  may  not  have  been  without  good 
results  in  refining  language  and  fitting  it  for  the 
higher  uses  to  which  it  was  destined.  The  cultists 
went  down  before  the  implacable  good  sense  of 
French  criticism,  but  the  defect  of  this  criticism 
was  that  it  ignored  imagination  altogether,  and 
sent  Nature  about  her  business  as  an  impertinent 
baggage  whose  household  loom  competed  unlaw 
fully  with  the  machine-made  fabrics,  so  exquisitely 
uniform  in  pattern,  of  the  royal  manufactories. 
There  is  more  than  a  fanciful  analogy  between  the 
style  which  Pope  brought  into  vogue  and  that 
which  for  a  time  bewitched  all  ears  in  the  latter 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century.  As  the  master  had 
made  it  an  axiom  to  avoid  what  was  mean  or  low, 


10  POPE 

so  the  disciples  endeavored  to  escape  from  what  was 
common.  This  they  contrived  by  the  ready  expe 
dient  of  the  periphrasis.  They  called  everything 
something  else.  A  boot  with  them  was 

"  The  fining  leather  that  encased  the  limb  "  ; 

coffee  became 

"  The  fragrant  juice  of  Mocha's  berry  brown  " ; 

and  they  were  as  liberal  of  epithets  as  a  royal 
christening  of  proper  names.  Two  in  every  verse, 
one  to  balance  the  other,  was  the  smallest  allow 
ance.  Here  are  four  successive  verses  from  "  The 
Vanity  of  Human  Wishes  "  :  — 

"  The  encumbered  oar  scarce  leaves  the  dreaded  coast 
Through  purple  billows  and  &  floating  host. 
The  bold  Bavarian  in  a  luckless  hoar 
Tries  the  dread  summits  of  Ccesarian  power." 

This  fashion  perished  also  by  its  own  excess,  but 
the  criticism  which  laid  at  the  door  of  the  master 
all  the  faults  of  his  pupils  was  unjust.  It  was  de 
fective,  moreover,  in  overlooking  how  much  of  what 
we  call  natural  is  an  artificial  product,  above  all  in 
forgetting  that  Pope  had  one  of  the  prime  qualities 
of  a  great  poet  in  exactly  answering  the  intellect 
ual  needs  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  and  in 
reflecting  its  lineaments.  He  did  in  some  not  in 
adequate  sense  hold  the  mirror  up  to  nature.  His 
poetry  is  not  a  mountain-tarn,  like  that  of  Words 
worth;  it  is  not  in  sympathy  with  the  higher 
moods  of  the  mind ;  yet  it  continues  entertaining, 
iu  spite  of  all  changes  of  mode.  It  was  a  mirror  in 
a  drawing-room,  but  it  gave  back  a  faithful  image 


POPE  11 

of  society,  powdered  and  rouged,  to  be  sure,  and 
intent  on  trifles,  yet  still  as  human  in  its  own  way 
as  the  heroes  of  Homer  in  theirs. 

For  the  popularity  of  Pope,  as  for  that  of  Marini 
and  his  sect,  circumstances  had  prepared  the  way. 
English  literature  for  half  a  century  after  the  Res 
toration  showed  the  marks  both  of  a  moral  reaction 
and  of  an  artistic  vassalage  to  France.  From  the 
compulsory  saintship  and  cropped  hair  of  the  Puri 
tans  men  rushed  or  sneaked,  as  their  temperaments 
dictated,  to  the  opposite  cant  of  sensuality  and  a 
wilderness  of  periwig.  Charles  II.  had  brought 
back  with  him  from  exile  French  manners,  French 
morals,  and  above  all  French  taste.  Misfortune 
makes  a  shallow  mind  sceptical.  It  had  made  the 
king  so ;  and  this,  at  a  time  when  court  patronage 
was  the  main  sinew  of  authorship,  was  fatal  to  the 
higher  qualities  of  literature.  That  Charles  should 
have  preferred  the  stately  decorums  of  the  French 
school,  and  should  have  mistaken  its  polished  man 
nerism  for  style,  was  natural  enough.  But  there 
was  something  also  in  the  texture  of  the  average 
British  mind  which  prepared  it  for  this  subjuga 
tion  from  the  other  side  of  the  Channel.  No  ob 
server  of  men  can  have  failed  to  notice  the  clumsy 
respect  which  the  understanding  pays  to  elegance 
of  manner  and  savoir-faire,  nor  what  an  awkward 
sense  of  inferiority  it  feels  in  the  presence  of  an 
accomplished  worldliness.  The  code  of  society  is 
stronger  with  most  persons  than  that  of  Sinai,  and 
many  a  man  who  would  not  scruple  to  thrust  his 
fingers  in  his  neighbor's  pocket  would  forego  green 


12  POPE 

peas  rather  than  use  his  knife  as  a  shovel.  The 
submission  with  which  the  greater  number  surren 
der  their  natural  likings  for  the  acquired  taste  of 
what  for  the  moment  is  called  the  World  is  a  highly 
curious  phenomenon,  and,  however  destructive  of 
originality,  is  the  main  safeguard  of  society  and 
nurse  of  civility.  Any  one  who  has  witnessed  the 
torments  of  an  honest  citizen  in  a  foreign  gallery 
before  some  hideous  martyrdom  which  he  feels  it 
his  duty  to  admire,  though  it  be  hateful  to  him  as 
nightmare,  may  well  doubt  whether  the  gridiron  of 
the  saint  were  hotter  than  that  of  the  sinner.  It 
is  only  a  great  mind  or  a  strong  character  that 
knows  how  to  respect  its  own  provincialism  and 
can  dare  to  be  in  fashion  with  itself.  The  bewil 
dered  clown  with  his  "  Am  I  Giles  ?  or  am  I  not  ?  " 
was  but  a  type  of  the  average  man  who  finds  him 
self  uniformed,  drilled,  and  keeping  step,  whether 
he  will  or  no,  with  the  company  into  which  destiny 
or  chance  has  drafted  him,  and  which  is  marching 
him  inexorably  away  from  everything  that  made 
him  comfortable. 

The  insularity  of  England,  while  it  fostered  pride 
and  reserve,  entailed  also  that  sensitiveness  to  ridi 
cule  which  haunts^pride  like  an  evil  genius.  "  The 
English,"  says  Barclay,  writing  half  a  century  be 
fore  the  Restoration,  "  have  for  the  most  part 
grave  minds  and  withdrawn,  as  it  were,  into  them 
selves  for  counsel ;  they  wonderfully  admire  them 
selves  and  the  manners,  genius,  and  spirit  of  their 
own  nation.  In  salutation  or  in  writing  they  en 
dure  not  (unless  haply  imbued  with  foreign  man 


POPE  13 

ners)  to  descend  to  those  words  of  imaginary  ser 
vitude  which  the  refinement  (blandities)  of  ages 
hath  invented." 1  Yet  their  fondness  of  foreign 
fashions  had  long  been  the  butt  of  native  satirists. 
Every  one  remembers  Portia's  merry  picture  of  the 
English  lord :  "  How  oddly  he  is  suited !  I  think 
he  bought  his  doublet  in  Italy,  his  round  hose  in 
France,  his  bonnet  in  Germany,  and  his  behavior 
everywhere."  But  while  she  laughs  at  his  bun 
gling  efforts  to  make  himself  a  cosmopolite  in  ex 
ternals,  she  hints  at  the  persistency  of  his  inward 
Anglicism :  "  He  hath  neither  Latin,  French,  nor 
Italian."  In  matters  of  taste  the  Anglo-Saxon 
mind  seems  always  to  have  felt  a  painful  distrust 
of  itself,  which  it  betrays  either  in  an  affectation 
of  burly  contempt  or  in  a  pretence  of  admiration 
equally  insincere.  The  young  lords  who  were  to 
make  the  future  court  of  Charles  II.  no  doubt  found 
in  Paris  an  elegance  beside  which  the  homely  blunt- 
ness  of  native  manners  seemed  rustic  and  under 
bred.  They  frequented  a  theatre  where  propriety 
was  absolute  upon  the  stage,  though  license  had  its 
full  swing  behind  the  scenes.  They  brought  home 
with  them  to  England  debauched  morals  and  that 
urbane  discipline  of  manners  whicn  is  so  agreeable 
a  substitute  for  discipline  of  mind.  The  word 
"  genteel "  came  back  with  them,  an  outward  symp 
tom  of  the  inward  change.  In  the  last  generation, 
the  men  whose  great  aim  was  success  in  the  Other 
World  had  wrought  a  political  revolution ;  now, 
those  whose  ideal  was  prosperity  in  This  World 
1  Barclaii  Satyricon,  p.  382.  Barclay  had  lived  in  France. 


14  POPE 

were  to  have  their  turn  and  to  accomplish  with 
their  lighter  weapons  as  great  a  change.  Before 
the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  John  Bull  was 
pretty  well  persuaded,  in  a  bewildered  kind  of  way, 
that  he  had  been  vulgar,  and  especially  that  his 
efforts  in  literature  showed  marks  of  native  vigor, 
indeed,  but  of  a  vigor  clownish  and  uncouth.  He 
began  to  be  ashamed  of  the  provincialism  which 
had  given  strength,  if  also  something  of  limitation, 
to  his  character. 

Waller,  who  spent  a  whole  summer  in  polishing 
the  life  out  of  ten  lines  to  be  written  in  the  Tasso 
of  the  Duchess  of  York,  expresses  the  prevailing 
belief  as  regarded  poetry  in  the  prologue  to  his 
"  improvement "  of  the  "  Maid's  Tragedy "  of 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher.  He  made  the  play  rea 
sonable,  as  it  was  called,  and  there  is  a  pleasant 
satire  in  the  fact  that  it  was  refused  a  license  be 
cause  there  was  an  immoral  king  in  it.  On  the 
throne,  to  be  sure,  —  but  on  the  stage !  Forbid  it, 
decency ! 

"  Above  our  neighbors'  our  conceptions  are, 
But  faultless  •writing  is  the  effect  of  care ; 
Our  lines  reformed,  and  not  composed  in  haste, 
Polished  like  marble,  •would  like  marble  last. 

"  Were  we  but  less  indulgent  to  our  fau'ts, 
And  patience  had  to  cultivate  our  thoughts, 
Our  Muse  would  flourish,  and  a  nobler  rage 
Would  honor  this  than  did  the  Grecian  stage. " 

It  is  a  curious  comment  on  these  verses  in  favor 
of  careful  writing,  that  Waller  should  have  failed 
even  to  express  his  own  meaning  either  clearly  or 


POPE  15 

with  propriety.  He  talks  of  "cultivating  our 
thoughts,"  when  he  means  "  pruning  our  style  'r ; 
he  confounds  the  Muse  with  the  laurel,  or  at  any 
rate  makes  her  a  plant,  and  then  goes  on  with  per 
fect  equanimity  to  tell  us  that  a  nobler  "  rage  " 
(that  is,  madness)  than  that  of  Greece  would  fol 
low  the  horticultural  devices  he  recommends.  It 
never  seems  to  have  occurred  to  Waller  that  it  is 
the  substance  of  what  you  polish,  and  not  the  polish 
itself,  that  insures  duration.  Dryden,  in  his  rough- 
and-ready  way,  has  hinted  at  this  in  his  verses  to 
Congreve  on  the  "  Double  Dealer."  He  begins  by 
stating  the  received  theory  about  the  improvement 
of  English  literature  under  the  new  regime,  but 
the  thin  ice  of  sophistry  over  which  Waller  had 
glided  smoothly  gives  way  under  his  greater  weight, 
and  he  finds  himself  in  deep  water  ere  he  is  aware. 

"  Well,  then,  the  promised  hour  has  come  at  last, 
The  present  age  in  wit  obscures  the  past ; 
Strong  were  our  sires,  and  as  they  fought  they  writ, 
Conquering  with  force  of  arm 1  and  dint  of  wit. 
Theirs  was  the  giant  race  before  the  Flood ; 
And  thus  when  Charles  returned  our  Empire  stood ; 
Like  Janus  he  the  stubborn  soil  manured, 
With  rules  of  husbandry  the  rankness  cured, 
Tamed  us  to  manners  when  the  stage  was  rude, 
And  boisterous  English  wit  with  art  endued ; 
Our  age  was  cultivated  thus  at  length, 
But  what  we  gained  in  skill  we  lost  in  strength  ; 
Our  builders  were  with  want  of  genius  curst, 
The  second  temple  was  not  like  the  first." 

There  would  seem  to  be  a  manifest  reminiscence  of 

1  Usually  printed  arms,  but  Dryden  certainly  wrote  arm,  to 
correspond  with  dint,  which  he  used  in  its  old  meaning'  of  a  down 
right  blow. 


16  POPE 

Waller's  verse  in  the  half -scornful  emphasis  which 
Dryden  lays  on  "  cultivated."  Perhaps  he  was  at 
first  led  to  give  greater  weight  to  correctness  and 
to  the  restraint  of  arbitrary  rules  from  a  conscious 
ness  that  he  had  a  tendency  to  hyperbole  and  ex 
travagance.  But  he  afterwards  became  convinced 
that  the  heightening  of  discourse  by  passion  was  a 
very  different  thing  from  the  exaggeration  which 
heaps  phrase  on  phrase,  and  that  genius,  like 
beauty,  can  always  plead  its  privilege.  Dryden,  by 
his  powerful  example,  by  the  charm  of  his  verse 
which  combines  vigor  and  fluency  in  a  measure 
perhaps  never  reached  by  any  other  of  our  poets, 
and  above  all  because  it  is  never  long  before  the 
sunshine  of  his  cheerful  good  sense  breaks  through 
the  clouds  of  rhetoric,  and  gilds  the  clipped  hedges 
over  which  his  thought  clambers  like  an  unpruned 
vine,  —  Dryden,  one  of  the  most  truly  English  of 
English  authors,  did  more  than  all  others  com 
bined  to  bring  about  the  triumphs  of  French  stand 
ards  in  taste  and  French  principles  in  criticism. 
But  he  was  always  like  a  deserter  who  cannot  feel 
happy  in  the  victories  of  the  alien  arms,  and  who 
would  go  back  if  he  could  to  the  camp  where  he 
naturally  belonged.  Between  1660  and  1700  more 
French  words,  I  believe,  were  directly  transplanted 
into  our  language  than  in  the  century  and  a  half 
since.  What  was  of  more  consequence,  French 
ideas  came  with  them,  shaping  the  form,  and 
through  that  modifying  the  spirit,  of  our  literature. 
Voltaire,  though  he  came  later,  was  steeped  in  the 
theories  of  art  which  had  been  inherited  as  tradi- 


POPE  17 

tlons  of  classicism  from  the  preceding  generation. 
He  had  lived  in  England,  and,  I  have  no  doubt, 
gives  us  a  very  good  notion  of  the  tone  which  was 
prevalent  there  in  his  time,  an  English  version  of 
the  criticism  imported  from  France.  He  tells  us 
that  Mr.  Addison  was  the  first  Englishman  who 
had  written  a  reasonable  tragedy.  And  in  spite 
of  the  growling  of  poor  old  Dennis,  whose  sandy 
pedantry  was  not  without  an  oasis  of  refreshing 
sound  judgment  here  and  there,  this  was  the  opin 
ion  of  most  persons  at  that  day,  except,  it  may  be 
suspected,  the  judicious  and  modest  Mr.  Addison 
himself.  Voltaire  says  of  the  English  tragedians, 
—  and  it  will  be  noticed  that  he  is  only  putting, 
in  another  way,  the  opinion  of  Dryden,  —  "  Their 
productions,  almost  all  barbarous,  without  polish, 
order,  or  probability,  have  astonishing  gleams  in 
the  midst  of  their  night ;  ...  it  seems  sometimes 
that  nature  is  not  made  in  England  as  it  is  else 
where."  Eh  bien,  the  inference  is  that  we  must 
try  and  make  it  so !  The  world  must  be  uniform 
in  order  to  be  comfortable,  and  what  fashion  so 
becoming  as  the  one  we  have  invented  in  Paris  ? 
It  is  not  a  little  amusing  that  when  Voltaire  played 
master  of  ceremonies  to  introduce  the  bizarre 
Shakespeare  among  his  countrymen,  that  other 
kind  of  nature  made  a  profounder  impression  on 
them  than  quite  pleased  him.  So  he  turned  about 
presently  and  called  his  whilome  protege  a  buffoon. 
The  condition  of  the  English  mind  at  the  close 
of  the  seventeenth  century  was  such  as  to  make 
it  particularly  sensitive  to  the  magnetism  which 


16  POPE 

Waller's  verse  in  the  half -scornful  emphasis  which 
Dry  den  lays  on  "  cultivated."  Perhaps  he  was  at 
first  led  to  give  greater  weight  to  correctness  and 
to  the  restraint  of  arbitrary  rules  from  a  conscious 
ness  that  he  had  a  tendency  to  hyperbole  and  ex 
travagance.  But  he  afterwards  became  convinced 
that  the  heightening  of  discourse  by  passion  was  a 
very  different  thing  from  the  exaggeration  which 
heaps  phrase  on  phrase,  and  that  genius,  like 
beauty,  can  always  plead  its  privilege.  Dryden,  by 
his  powerful  example,  by  the  charm  of  his  verse 
which  combines  vigor  and  fluency  in  a  measure 
perhaps  never  reached  by  any  other  of  our  poets, 
and  above  all  because  it  is  never  long  before  the 
sunshine  of  his  cheerful  good  sense  breaks  through 
the  clouds  of  rhetoric,  and  gilds  the  clipped  hedges 
over  which  his  thought  clambers  like  an  unpruned 
vine,  —  Dryden,  one  of  the  most  truly  English  of 
English  authors,  did  more  than  all  others  com 
bined  to  bring  about  the  triumphs  of  French  stand 
ards  in  taste  and  French  principles  in  criticism. 
But  he  was  always  like  a  deserter  who  cannot  feel 
happy  in  the  victories  of  the  alien  arms,  and  who 
would  go  back  if  he  could  to  the  camp  where  he 
naturally  belonged.  Between  1660  and  1700  more 
French  words,  I  believe,  were  directly  transplanted 
into  our  language  than  in  the  century  and  a  half 
since.  What  was  of  more  consequence,  French 
ideas  came  with  them,  shaping  the  form,  and 
through  that  modifying  the  spirit,  of  our  literature. 
Voltaire,  though  he  came  later,  was  steeped  in  the 
theories  of  art  which  had  been  inherited  as  tradi- 


POPE  17 

tions  of  classicism  from  the  preceding  generation. 
He  had  lived  in  England,  and,  I  have  no  doubt, 
gives  us  a  very  good  notion  of  the  tone  which  was 
prevalent  there  in  his  time,  an  English  version  of 
the  criticism  imported  from  France.  He  tells  us 
that  Mr.  Addison  was  the  first  Englishman  who 
had  written  a  reasonable  tragedy.  And  in  spite 
of  the  growling  of  poor  old  Dennis,  whose  sandy 
pedantry  was  not  without  an  oasis  of  refreshing 
sound  judgment  here  and  there,  this  was  the  opin 
ion  of  most  persons  at  that  day,  except,  it  may  be 
suspected,  the  judicious  and  modest  Mr.  Addison 
himself.  Voltaire  says  of  the  English  tragedians, 
—  and  it  will  be  noticed  that  he  is  only  putting, 
in  another  way,  the  opinion  of  Dryden,  —  "  Their 
productions,  almost  all  barbarous,  without  polish, 
order,  or  probability,  have  astonishing  gleams  in 
the  midst  of  their  night ;  ...  it  seems  sometimes 
that  nature  is  not  made  in  England  as  it  is  else 
where."  Eh  bien,  the  inference  is  that  we  must 
try  and  make  it  so !  The  world  must  be  uniform 
in  order  to  be  comfortable,  and  what  fashion  so 
becoming  as  the  one  we  have  invented  in  Paris  ? 
It  is  not  a  little  amusing  that  when  Voltaire  played 
master  of  ceremonies  to  introduce  the  bizarre 
Shakespeare  among  his  countrymen,  that  other 
kind  of  nature  made  a  profounder  impression  on 
them  than  quite  pleased  him.  So  he  turned  about 
presently  and  called  his  whilome  protege  a  buffoon. 
The  condition  of  the  English  mind  at  the  close 
of  the  seventeenth  century  was  such  as  to  make 
it  particularly  sensitive  to  the  magnetism  which 


20  POPE 

stronger  in  perceptive  and  analytic  than  in  imagi 
native  qualities,  loving  precision,  grace,  and  finesse, 
prone  to  attribute  an  almost  magical  power  to  the 
scientific   regulation  whether   of   politics    or    reli 
gion,  had  brought  wit  and  fancy  and  the  elegant 
arts  of  society  to  as  great  perfection  as  was  pos 
sible  by  the  a  priori  method.     Its  ideal  in  litera 
ture  was  to  conjure  passion  within  the  magic  circle 
of  courtliness,  or  to  combine  the  appearance  of 
careless  ease  and  gayety  of  thought  with  intellect 
ual  exactness  of  statement.     The  eternal  watchful 
ness  of  a  wit  that  never  slept  had  made  it  distrust- 
fid  of  the  natural  emotions  and  the  unconventional 
expression  of  them,  and  its  first  question  about  a 
sentiment  was,  Will  it  be   safe?  about  a  phrase, 
Will  it  pass  with  the  Academy  ?     The  effect  of  its 
example  on  English  literature  would  appear  chiefly 
in  neatness  and  facility  of  turn,  in  point  and  epi 
grammatic  compactness  of  phrase,  and  these  in  con 
veying  conventional  sentiments  and  emotions,  in 
appealing  to  good  society  rather  than  to  human 
nature..    Its  influence  would  be  greatest  where  its 
success  had  been  most  marked,  in  what  was  called 
moral  poetry,  whose  chosen  province  was  manners, 
and  in  which  satire,  with  its  avenging  scourge,  took 
the  place  of  that  profounder  art  whose  office  it  was 
to  purify,  not  the  manners,  but  the  source  of  them 
in  the  soul,  by  pity  and  terror.     The  mistake  of 
the  whole  school  of  French  criticism,  it  seems  to 
me,  lay  in  its  tendency  to  confound  what  was  com 
mon  with  what  was  vulgar,  in  a  too  exclusive  def 
erence   to   authority  at   the   expense   of  all   free 
movement  of  the  mind. 


POPE  21 

There  are  certain  defects  of  taste  which  correct 
themselves  by  their  own  extravagance.  Language, 
I  suspect,  is  more  apt  to  be  reformed  by  the  charm 
of  some  master  of  it,  like  Milton,  than  by  any 
amount  of  precept.  The  influence  of  second-rate 
writers  for  evil  is  at  best  ephemeral,  for  true  style, 
the  joint  result  of  culture  and  natural  aptitude,  is 
always  in  fashion,  as  fine  manners  always  are,  in 
whatever  clothes.  Perhaps  some  reform  was  needed 
when  Quarles,  who  had  no  mean  gift  of  poesy, 
could  write, 

' '  My  passion  has  no  April  in  her  eyes : 
I  cannot  spend  in  mists  ;  I  cannot  mizzle  ; 
My  fluent  brains  are  too  severe  to  drizzle 
Slight  drops."  l 

Good  taste  is  an  excellent  thing  when  it  confines 
itself  to  its  own  rightful  province  of  the  proprie 
ties,  but  when  it  attempts  to  correct  those  profound 
instincts  out  of  whose  judgments  the  higher  princi 
ples  of  aesthetics  have  been  formulated,  its  success 
is  a  disaster.  During  the  era  when  the  French 
theory  of  poetry  was  supreme,  we  notice  a  decline 
from  imagination  to  fancy,  from  passion  to  wit, 
from  metaphor,  which  fuses  image  and  thought  in 
one,  to  simile,  which  sets  one  beside  the  other,  from 
the  supreme  code  of  the  natural  sympathies  to  the 

1  Elegie  on  Doctor  Wilson,  But  if  Quarles  had  been  led  astray 
by  the  vices  of  Donne's  manner,  he  had  good  company  in  Herbert 
and  Vaughan.  In  common  with  them,  too,  he  had  that  luck  of 
simpleness  which  is  even  more  delightful  than  wit.  In  the  same 
poem  he  says,  — 

"  Go,  glorious  soul,  and  lay  thy  temples  down 
In  Abram's  bosom,  in  the  sacred  down 
Of  soft  eternity." 


22  POPE 

parochial  by-laws  of  etiquette.  The  imagination 
instinctively  Platonizes,  and  it  is  the  essence  of 
poetry  that  it  should  be  unconventional,  that  the 
soul  of  it  should  subordinate  the  outward  parts ; 
while  the  artificial  method  proceeds  from  a  princi 
ple  the  reverse  of  this,  making  the  spirit  lackey  the 
form. 

Waller  preaches  up   this  new  doctrine  in  the 
epilogue  to  the  "  Maid's  Tragedy  "  :  — 

"  Nor  is 't  less  strange  such  mighty  wits  as  those 
Should  use  a  style  in  tragedy  like  prose  ; 
Well-sounding  verse,  where  princes  tread  the  stage, 
Should  speak  their  virtue  and  describe  their  rage." 

That  it  should  be  beneath  the  dignity  of  princes 
to  speak  in  anything  but  rhyme  can  only  be  paral 
leled  by  Mr.  Puff's  law  that  a  heroine  can  go  deco 
rously  mad  only  in  white  satin.  Waller,  I  sup 
pose,  though  with  so  loose  a  thinker  one  cannot  be 
positive,  uses  "  describe  "  in  its  Latin  sense  of  lim 
itation.  Fancy  Othello  or  Lear  confined  to  this 
go-cart !  Phillips  touches  the  true  point  when  he 
says,  "  And  the  truth  is,  the  use  of  measure  alone, 
without  any  rime  at  all,  would  give  more  scope  and 
liberty  both  to  style  and  fancy  than  can  possibly 
be  observed  in  rime."  1  But  let  us  test  Waller's 
method  by  an  example  or  two.  His  monarch  made 
reasonable,  thus  discourses  :  — 

"  Courage  our  greatest  failings  does  supply, 
And  makes  all  good,  or  handsomely  we  die. 
Life  is  a  thing  of  common  use  ;   by  heaven 
As  well  to  insects  as  to  monarchs  given ; 
But  for  the  crown,  't  is  a  more  sacred  thing ; 

1  Preface  to  the  Theatrum. 


POPE  23 

1 11  dying  lose  it,  or  I  '11  live  a  king. 

Come,  Diphilus,  we  must  together  walk 

And  of  a  matter  of  importance  talk."  [Exeunt. 

Blank  verse,  where  the  sentiment  is  trivial  as  here, 
merely  removes  prose  to  a  proper  ideal  distance, 
where  it  is  in  keeping  with  more  impassioned  parts, 
but  commonplace  set  to  this  rocking-horse  jog 
irritates  the  nerves.  There  is  nothing  here  to  re 
mind  us  of  the  older  tragic  style  but  the  exeunt  at 
the  close.  Its  pithy  conciseness  and  the  relief 
which  it  brings  us  from  his  majesty's  prosing  give 
it  an  almost  poetical  savor.  Aspatia's  reflections 
upon  suicide  (or  "  suppressing  our  breath,"  as  she 
calls  it),  in  the  same  play,  will  make  few  readers 
regret  that  Shakespeare  was  left  to  his  own  unas 
sisted  barbarism  when  he  wrote  Hamlet's  soliloquy 
on  the  same  topic  :  — 

"  'T  was  in  compassion  of  oar  woe 
That  nature  first  made  poisons  grow, 
For  hopeless  wretches  such  as  I 
Kindly  providing  means  to  die  : 
As  mothers  do  their  children  keep, 
So  Nature  feeds  and  makes  us  sleep. 
The  indisposed  she  does  invite 
To  go  to  bed  before  'tis  night." 

Correctness  in  this  case  is  but  a  synonym  of  mo 
notony,  and  words  are  chosen  for  the  number  of 
their  syllables,  for  their  rubbishy  value  to  fill-in, 
instead  of  being  forced  upon  the  poet  by  the  mean 
ing  which  occupies  the  mind.  Language  becomes 
useful  for  its  diluting  properties,  rather  than  as 
the  medium  by  means  of  which  the  thought  or 
fancy  precipitate  themselves  in  crystals  upon  a 


24  POPE 

connecting  thread  of  purpose.  Let  us  read  a  few 
verses  from  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  that  we  may 
feel  fully  the  difference  between  the  rude  and  the 
reformed  styles.  This  also  shall  be  a  speech  of  As- 
patia's.  Antiphila,  one  of  her  maidens,  is  working 
the  story  of  Theseus  and  Ariadne  in  tapestry,  for 
the  older  masters  loved  a  picturesque  background 
and  knew  the  value  of  fanciful  accessaries.  Aspa- 
tia  thinks  the  face  of  Ariadne  not  sad  enough  :  — 

"  Do  it  by  me, 

Do  it  again  by  me,  the  lost  Aspatia, 
And  yon  shall  find  all  true  but  the  wild  island. 
Suppose  I  stand  upon  the  seabeach  now, 
Mine  arms  thus,  and  my  hair  blown  with  the  wind, 
Wild  as  that  desert ;  and  let  all  about  me 
Be  teachers  of  my  story.     Do  my  face 
(If  ever  thou  hadst  feeling  of  a  sorrow) 
Thus,  thus.  Antiphila ;  strive  to  make  me  look 
Like  sorrow's  monument ;  and  the  trees  about  me 
Let  them  be  dry  and  leafless ;  let  the  rocks 
Groan  with  continual  surges ;  and  behind  me 
Make  all  a  desolation." 

What  instinctive  felicity  of  versification !  what  sob 
bing  breaks  and  passionate  repetitions  are  here  ! 

We  see  what  the  direction  of  the  new  tendency 
was,  but  it  would  be  an  inadequate  or  a  dishonest 
criticism  that  should  hold  Pope  responsible  for  the 
narrow  compass  of  the  instrument  which  was  his 
legacy  from  his  immediate  predecessors,  any  more 
than  for  the  wearisome  thrumming-over  of  his  tune 
by  those  who  came  after  him  and  who  had  caught 
his  technical  skill  without  his  genius.  The  question 
properly  stated  is,  How  much  was  it  possible  to 
make  of  the  material  supplied  by  the  age  in  which 


POPE  25 

he  lived  ?  and  how  much  did  he  make  of  it  ?  Thus 
far,  among  the  great  English  poets  who  preceded 
him,  we  have  seen  actual  life  represented  by  Chau 
cer,  imaginative  life  by  Spenser,  ideal  life  by 
Shakespeare,  the  interior  life  by  Milton.  But  as 
everything  aspires  to  a  rhythmical  utterance  of  it 
self,  so  conventional  life,  itself  a  new  phenomenon, 
was  waiting  for  its  poet.  It  found  or  made  a  most 
fitting  one  in  Pope.  He  stands  for  exactness  of 
intellectual  expression,  for  perfect  propriety  of 
phrase  (I  speak  of  him  at  his  best),  and  is  a  strik 
ing  instance  how  much  success  and  permanence  of 
reputation  depend  on  conscientious  finish  as  well  as 
on  native  endowment.  Butler  asks,  — 

"  Then  why  should  those  who  pick  and  choose 
The  best  of  all  the  best  compose, 
And  join  it  by  Mosaic  art, 
In  graceful  order,  part  to  part, 
To  make  the  whole  in  beauty  suit, 
Not  merit  as  complete  repute 
As  those  who,  with  less  art  and  pain, 
Can  do  it  with  their  native  brain  ?  " 

Butler  knew  very  well  that  precisely  what  stamps 
a  man  as  an  artist  is  this  power  of  finding  out  what 
is  "  the  best  of  all  the  best." 

I  confess  that  I  come  to  the  treatment  of  Pope 
with  diffidence.  I  was  brought  up  in  the  old  super 
stition  that  he  was  the  greatest  poet  that  ever 
lived ;  and  when  I  came  to  find  that  I  had  instincts 
of  my  own,  and  my  mind  was  brought  in  contact 
with  the  apostles  of  a  more  esoteric  doctrine  of 
poetry,  I  felt  that  ardent  desire  for  smashing  the 
idols  I  had  been  brought  up  to  worship,  without 


26  POPE 

any  regard  to  their  artistic  beauty,  which  character 
izes  youthful  zeal.  What  was  it  to  me  that  Pope 
was  called  a  master  of  style  ?  I  felt,  as  Addison 
says  in  his  Freeholder  when  answering  an  argu 
ment  in  favor  of  the  Pretender  because  he  could 
speak  English  and  George  I.  could  not,  "  that  I  did 
not  wish  to  be  tyrannized  over  in  the  best  Eng 
lish  that  ever  was  spoken."  The  young  demand 
thoughts  that  find  an  echo  in  their  real  and  not 
their  acquired  nature,  and  care  very  little  about  the 
dress  they  are  put  in.  It  is  later  that  we  learn  to 
like  the  conventional,  as  we  do  olives.  There  was 
a  time  when  I  could  not  read  Pope,  but  disliked 
him  on  principle,  as  old  Roger  Ascham  seems  to 
have  felt  about  Italy  when  he  says,  "  I  was  once  in 
Italy  myself,  but  I  thank  God  my  abode  there  was 
only  nine  days." 

But  Pope  fills  a  very  important  place  in  the  his 
tory  of  English  poetry,  and  must  be  studied  by 
every  one  who  would  come  to  a  clear  knowledge  of 
it.  I  have  since  read  over  every  line  that  Pope 
ever  wrote,  and  every  letter  written  by  or  to  him, 
and  that  more  than  once.  If  I  have  not  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  he  is  the  greatest  of  poets,  I  be 
lieve  that  I  am  at  least  in  a  condition  to  allow  him 
every  merit  that  is  fairly  his.  I  have  said  that 
Pope  as  a  literary  man  represents  precision  and 
grace  of  expression;  but  as  a  poet  he  represents 
something  more,  —  nothing  less,  namely,  than  one 
of  those  eternal  controversies  of  taste  which  will 
last  as  long  as  the  imagination  and  understanding 
divide  men  between  them.  It  is  not  a  matter  to  be 


POPE  27 

settled  by  any  amount  of  argument  or  demonstra 
tion.  There  are  born  Popists  or  Wordsworthians, 
Lockists  or  Kantists,  and  there  is  nothing  more  to 
be  said  of  the  matter. 

Wordsworth  was  not  in  a  condition  to  do  Pope 
justice.  A  man  brought  up  in  sublime  mountain 
solitudes,  and  whose  nature  was  a  solitude  more 
vast  than  they,  walking  an  earth  which  quivered 
with  the  throe  of  the  French  Revolution,  the  child 
of  an  era  of  profound  mental  and  moral  movement, 
it  could  not  be  expected  that  he  should  be  in  sym 
pathy  with  the  poet  of  artificial  life.  Moreover,  he 
was  the  apostle  of  imagination,  and  came  at  a  time 
when  the  school  which  Pope  founded  had  degener 
ated  into  a  mob  of  mannerists  who  wrote  with  ease, 
and  who  with  their  congenial  critics  united  at  once 
to  decry  poetry  which  brought  in  the  dangerous 
innovation  of  having  a  soul  in  it. 

But  however  it  may  be  with  poets,  it  is  very  cer 
tain  that  a  reader  is  happiest  whose  mind  is  broad 
enough  to  enjoy  the  natural  school  for  its  nature, 
and  the  artificial  for  its  artificiality,  provided  they 
be  only  good  of  their  kind.  At  any  rate,  we  must 
allow  that  the  man  who  can  produce  one  perfect 
work  is  either  a  great  genius  or  a  very  lucky  one  ; 
and  so  far  as  we  who  read  are  concerned,  it  is  of 
secondary  importance  which.  And  Pope  has  done 
this  in  the  "  Rape  of  the  Lock."  For  wit,  fancy, 
invention,  and  keeping,  it  has  never  been  surpassed. 
I  do  not  say  there  is  in  it  poetry  of  the  highest 
order,  or  that  Pope  is  a  poet  whom  any  one  would 
choose  as  the  companion  of  his  best  hours.  There 


28  POPE 

is  no  inspiration  in  it,  no  trumpet-call,  but  for  pure 
entertainment  it  is  unmatched.  There  are  two 
kinds  of  genius.  The  first  and  highest  may  be  said 
to  speak  out  of  the  eternal  to  the  present,  and  must 
compel  its  age  to  understand  it ;  the  second  under 
stands  its  age,  and  tells  it  what  it  wishes  to  be  told. 
Let  us  find  strength  and  inspiration  in  the  one, 
amusement  and  instruction  in  the  other,  and  be 
honestly  thankful  for  both. 

The  very  earliest  of  Pope's  productions  give  indi 
cations  of  that  sense  and  discretion,  as  well  as  wit, 
which  afterward  so  eminently  distinguished  him. 
The  facility  of  expression  is  remarkable,  and  we 
find  also  that  perfect  balance  of  metre,  which  he 
afterward  carried  so  far  as  to  be  wearisome.  His 
pastorals  were  written  in  his  sixteenth  year,  and 
their  publication  immediately  brought  him  into  no 
tice.  The  following  four  verses  from  his  first  pas 
toral  are  quite  characteristic  in  their  antithetic 
balance :  — 

"  You  that,  too  wise  for  pride,  too  good  for  power, 
Enjoy  the  glory  to  be  great  no  more, 
And  carrying  with  you  all  the  world  can  boast, 
To  all  the  world  illustriously  are  lost !  " 

The  sentiment  is  affected,  and  reminds  one  of  that 
future  period  of  Pope's  Correspondence  with  his 
Friends,  when  Swift,  his  heart  corroding  with  dis 
appointed  ambition  at  Dublin,  Bolingbroke  raising 
delusive  turnips  at  his  farm,  and  Pope  pretend 
ing  not  to  feel  the  lampoons  which  imbittered  his 
life,  played  together  the  solemn  farce  of  affecting 
indifference  to  the  world  by  which  it  would  have 


POPE  29 

agonized  them  to  be  forgotten,  and  wrote  letters 
addressed  to  each  other,  but  really  intended  for  that 
posterity  whose  opinion  they  assumed  to  despise. 

In  these  pastorals  there  is  an  entire  want  of  na 
ture.  For  example,  in  that  on  the  death  of  Mrs. 
Tempest :  — 

"  Her  fate  is  whispered  by  the  gentle  breeze 
And  told  in  sighs  to  all  the  trembling  trees ; 
The  trembling  trees,  in  every  plain  and  wood, 
Her  fate  remunnur  to  the  silver  flood ; 
The  silver  flood,  so  lately  calm,  appears 
Swelled  with  new  passion,  and  o'erflows  with  tears ; 
The  winds  and  trees  and  floods  her  death  deplore, 
Daphne,  our  grief  !  our  glory  now  no  more  !  " 

All  this  is  as  perfectly  professional  as  the  mourn 
ing  of  an  undertaker.  Still  worse,  Pope  material 
izes  and  makes  too  palpably  objective  that  sympa 
thy  which  our  grief  forces  upon  outward  nature. 
Milton,  before  making  the  echoes  mourn  for  Lyci- 
das,  puts  our  feelings  in  tune,  as  it  were,  and  hints 
at  his  own  imagination  as  the  source  of  this  emo 
tion  in  inanimate  things,  — 

"  But,  O  the  heavy  change  now  thou  art  gone !  " 

In  "Windsor  Forest"  we  find  the  same  thing 
again  :  — 

"Here  his  first  lays  majestic  Denham  sung, 
There  the  last  numbers  flowed  from  Cowley's  tongue ; 
O  early  lost,  what  tears  the  river  shed 
When  the  sad  pomp  along  his  banks  was  led ! 
His  drooping  swans  on  every  note  expire, 
And  on  his  willows  hung  each  muse's  lyre !  " 

In  the  same  poem  he  indulges  the  absurd  conceit 
that, 

"  Beasts  urged  by  us,  their  fellow-beasts  pursue, 
And  learn  of  man  each  other  to  undo ' '  i 


30  POPE 

and  in  the  succeeding  verses  gives  some  striking 
instances  of  that  artificial  diction,  so  inappropriate 
to  poems  descriptive  of  natural  objects  and  ordi 
nary  life,  which  brought  verse-making  to  such  a 
depth  of  absurdity  in  the  course  of  the  century. 

"  With  slaughtering  guns,  the  unwearied  fowler  roves 
Where  frosts  have  whitened  all  the  naked  groves ; 
Where  doves  in  flocks  the  leafless  trees  o'ershade, 
And  lonely  woodcocks  haunt  the  watery  glade ; 
He  lifts  the  tube  and  levels  with  his  eye, 
Straight  a  short  thunder  breaks  the  frozen  sky : 
Oft  as  in  airy  rings  they  skim  the  heath, 
The  clamorous  lapwings  feel  the  leaden  death ; 
Oft  as  the  mounting  larks  their  notes  prepare, 
They  fall  and  leave  their  little  lives  in  air." 

Now  one  would  imagine  that  the  tube  of  the  fowler 
was  a  telescope  instead  of  a  gun.  And  think  of 
the  larks  preparing  their  notes  like  a  country 
choir !  Yet  even  here  there  are  admirable  lines,  — 

' '  Oft  as  in  airy  rings  they  skim  the  heath, " 
"  They  fall  and  leave  their  little  lives  in  air," 

for  example. 

In  Pope's  next  poem,  the  "  Essay  on  Criticism," 
the  wit  and  poet  become  apparent.  It  is  full  of 
clear  thoughts,  compactly  expressed.  In  this  poem, 
written  when  Pope  was  only  twenty-one,  occur 
some  of  those  lines  which  have  become  proverbial ; 
such  as 

"  A  little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing  " ; 

"  For  fools  rush  in  where  angels  fear  to  tread  " ; 

"  True  wit  is  Nature  to  advantage  dressed, 
What  oft  was  thought,  but  ne'er  so  well  expressed." 

-  For  each  ill  author  is  as  bad  a  friend." 


POPE  81 

In  all  of  these  we  notice  that  terseness  in  which 
(regard  being  had  to  his  especial  range  of  thought) 
Pope  has  never  been  equalled.  One  cannot  help 
being  struck  also  with  the  singular  discretion  which 
the  poem  gives  evidence  of.  I  do  not  know  where 
to  look  for  another  author  in  whom  it  appeared  so 
early,  and,  considering  the  vivacity  of  his  mind 
and  the  constantly  besetting  temptation  of  his  wit, 
it  is  still  more  wonderful.  In  his  boyish  corre 
spondence  with  poor  old  Wycherley,  one  would 
suppose  him  to  be  the  man  and  Wycherley  the 
youth.  Pope's  understanding  was  no  less  vigorous 
(when  not  the  dupe  of  his  nerves)  than  his  fancy 
was  lightsome  and  sprightly. 

I  come  now  to  what  in  itself  would  be  enough  to 
have  immortalized  him  as  a  poet,  the  "  Rape  of  the 
Lock,"  in. which,  indeed,  he  appears  more  purely 
as  poet  than  in  any  other  of  his  productions.  Else 
where  he  has  shown  more  force,  more  wit,  more 
reach  of  thought,  but  nowhere  such  a  truly  artistic 
combination  of  elegance  and  fancy.  His  genius 
has  here  found  its  true  direction,  and  the  very 
same  artificiality,  which  in  his  pastorals  was  un- 
pleasing,  heightens  the  effect,  and  adds  to  the  gen 
eral  keeping.  As  truly  as  Shakespeare  is  the  poet 
of  man,  as  God  made  him,  dealing  with  great  pas 
sions  and  innate  motives,  so  truly  is  Pope  the  poet 
of  society,  the  delineator  of  manners,  the  exposer 
of  those  motives  which  may  be  called  acquired, 
whose  spring  is  in  institutions  and  habits  of  purely 
worldly  origin. 

The  "  Rape  of  the  Lock  "  was  written  in  Pope's 


82  POPE 

twenty  -  fourth  year,  and  the  machinery  of  the 
Sylphs  was  added  at  the  suggestion  of  Dr.  Garth, 
—  a  circumstance  for  which  we  can  feel  a  more 
unmixed  gratitude  to  him  than  for  writing  the 
"Dispensary."  The  idea  was  taken  from  that 
entertaining  book  "The  Count  de  Gabalis,"  in 
which  Fouque  afterward  found  the  hint  for  his 
*'  Undine " ;  but  the  little  sprites  as  they  appear 
in  the  poem  are  purely  the  creation  of  Pope's 
fancy. 

The  theory  of  the  poem  is  excellent.  The  heroic 
is  out  of  the  question  in  fine  society.  It  is  per 
fectly  true  that  almost  every  door  we  pass  in  the 
street  closes  upon  its  private  tragedy,  but  the  mo 
ment  a  great  passion  enters  a  man  he  passes  at 
once  out  of  the  artificial  into  the  human.  So  long 
as  he  continues  artificial,  the  sublime  is  a  conscious 
absurdity  to  him.  The  mock-heroic  then  is  the 
only  way  in  which  the  petty  actions  and  sufferings 
of  the  fine  world  can  be  epically  treated,  and  the 
contrast  continually  suggested  with  subjects  of 
larger  scope  and  more  dignified  treatment,  makes 
no  small  part  of  the  pleasure  and  sharpens  the 
point  of  the  wit.  The  invocation  is  admirable :  — 

"  Say,  what  strange  motive,  Goddess,  could  compel, 
A  well-bred  lord  to  assault  a  gentle  belle  ? 
O  say  what  stranger  cause,  yet  unexplored, 
Could  make  a  gentle  belle  reject  a  lord  ?  " 

The  keynote  of  the  poem  is  here  struck,  and  we 
are  able  to  put  ourselves  in  tune  with  it.  It  is  not 
a  parody  of  the  heroic  style,  but  only  a  setting  it 
in  satirical  juxtaposition  with  cares  and  events  and 


POPE  33 

modes  of  thought  with  which  it  is  in  comical  antip 
athy,  and  while  it  is  not  degraded,  they  are  shown 
in  their  triviality.  The  "clouded  cane,"  as  com 
pared  with  the  Homeric  spear,  indicates  the  differ 
ence  of  scale,  the  lower  plane  of  emotions  and  pas 
sions.  The  opening  of  the  action,  too,  is  equally 
good : — 

"Sol  through  white  curtains  shot  a  timorous  ray, 
And  oped  those  eyes  that  must  eclipse  the  day, 
Now  lapdogs  give  themselves  the  rousing  shake, 
And  sleepless  lovers  just  at  twelve  awake ; 
Thrice  rung  the  bell,  the  slipper  knocked  the  ground, 
And  the  pressed  watch  returned  a  silver  sound." 

The  mythology  of  the  Sylphs  is  full  of  the  most 
fanciful  wit;  indeed,  wit  infused  with  fancy  is 
Pope's  peculiar  merit.  The  Sylph  is  addressing 
Belinda :  — 

"  Know,  then,  unnumbered  spirits  round  thee  fly, 
The  light  militia  of  the  lower  sky  ; 
These,  though  unseen,  are  ever  on  the  wing, 
Hang  o'er  the  box  and  hover  round  the  ring. 
As  now  your  own  our  beings  were  of  old, 
And  once  enclosed  in  woman's  beauteous  mould ; 
Think  not,  when  woman's  transient  breath  is  fled, 
That  all  her  vanities  at  once  are  dead ; 
Succeeding  vanities  she  still  regards, 
And,  though  she  plays  no  more,  o'erlooks  the  cards. 
For  when  the  fair  in  all  their  pride  expire, 
To  their  first  elements  their  souls  retire ; 
The  sprites  of  fiery  termagants  in  flame 
Mount  up  and  take  a  salamander's  name ; 
Soft  yielding  nymphs  to  water  glide  away 
And  sip,  with  nymphs,  their  elemental  tea ; 
The  graver  prude  sinks  downward  to  a  gnome, 
In  search  of  mischief  still  on  earth  to  roam ; 
The  light  coquettes  in  sylphs  aloft  repair 
And  sport  and  flutter  in  the  fields  of  air." 


84  POPE 

And  the  contrivance  by  which  Belinda  is  awakened 
is  also  perfectly  in  keeping  with  all  the  rest  of  the 
machinery :  — 

**  He  said :  when  Shock,  who  thought  she  slept  too  long, 
Leaped  np  and  waked  his  mistress  with  bis  tongue ; 
'T  was  then,  Belinda,  if  report  say  true, 
Thy  eyes  first  opened  on  a  billet-doux" 

Throughout  this  poem  the  satiric  wit  of  Pope  peeps 
out  in  the  pleasantest  little  smiling  ways,  as  where, 
in  describing  the  toilet-table,  he  says :  — 

"  Here  files  of  pins  extend  their  shining  rows, 
Puffs,  powders,  patches,  Bibles,  billet-doux" 

Or  when,  after  the  fatal  lock  has  been  severed,  — 

"  Then  flashed  the  living  lightning  from  her  eyes, 
And  screams  of  horror  rend  the  affrighted  skies, 
Not  louder  shrieks  to  pitying  Heaven  are  cast 
When  husbands  or  when  lapdogs  breathe  their  last ; 
Or  when  rich  china- vessels,  fallen  from  high, 
In  glittering  dust  and  painted  fragments  lie !  " 

And  so,  when  the  conflict  begins :  — 

"  Now  Jove  suspends  his  golden  scales  in  air ; 
Weighs  the  men's  wits  against  the  ladies1  hair ; 
The  doubtful  beam  long  nods  from  side  to  side  ; 
At  length  the  wits  mount  np,  the  hairs  subside." 

But  more  than  the  wit  and  fancy,  I  think,  the  per 
fect  keeping  of  the  poem  deserves  admiration.  Ex 
cept  a  touch  of  grossness,  here  and  there,  there  is 
the  most  pleasing  harmony  in  all  the  conceptions 
and  images.  The  punishments  which  he  assigns  to 
the  sylphs  who  neglect  their  duty  are  charmingly 
appropriate  and  ingenious  :  — 

"  Whatever  spirit,  careless  of  his  charge, 
His  post  neglects,  or  leaves  the  fair  at  large, 


POPE  35 

Shall  feel  sharp  vengeance  soon  o'ertake  his  sins; 
Be  stopped  in  vials  or  transfixed  with  pins, 
Or  plunged  in  lakes  of  bitter  washes  lie, 
Or  wedged  whole  ages  in  a  bodkin's  eye  ; 
Gums  and  pomatums  shall  his  flight  restrain, 
While  clogged  he  beats  his  silver  wings  in  vain ; 
Or  alum  styptics  with  contracting  power, 
Shrink  his  thin  essence  like  a  rivelled  flower ; 
Or  as  Ixion  fixed  the  wretch  shall  feel 
The  giddy  motion  of  the  whirling  wheel, 
In  fumes  of  burning  chocolate  shall  glow, 
And  tremble  at  the  sea  that  froths  below  !  " 

The  speech  of  Thalestris,  too,  with  its  droll  cli 
max,  is  equally  good :  — 

"  Methinks  already  I  your  tears  survey, 
Already  hear  the  horrid  things  they  say, 
Already  see  you  a  degraded  toast, 
And  all  your  honor  in  a  whisper  lost ! 
How  shall  I  then  your  helpless  fame  defend  ? 
'T  will  then  be  infamy  to  seem  your  friend  I 
And  shall  this  prize,  the  inestimable  prize, 
Exposed  through  crystal  to  the  gazing  eyes, 
And  heightened  by  the  diamond's  circling  rays, 
On  that  rapacious  hand  forever  blaze  ? 
Sooner  shall  grass  in  Hydepark  Circus  grow, 
And  wits  take  lodging  in  the  sound  of  Bow, 
Sooner  let  earth,  air,  sea,  in  chaos  fall, 
Men,  monkeys,  lapdogs,  parrots,  perish  all !  " 

So  also  Belinda's  account  of  the  morning  omens  : 

"  'T  was  this  the  morning  omens  seemed  to  tell ; 
Thrice  from  my  trembling  hand  the  patch-box  fell ; 
The  tottering  china  shook  without  a  wind  ; 
Nay,  Poll  sat  mute,  and  Shock  was  most  unkind." 

The  idea  of  the  goddess  of  Spleen,  and  of  her 
palace,  where 

"  The  dreaded  East  is  all  the  wind  that  blows," 

was  a  very  happy  one.     In  short,  the  whole  poem 


36  POPE 

more  truly  deserves  the  name  of  a  creation  than 
anything  Pope  ever  wrote.  The  action  is  confined 
to  a  world  of  his  own,  the  supernatural  agency  is 
wholly  of  his  own  contrivance,  and  nothing  is  al 
lowed  to  overstep  the  limitations  of  the  subject. 
It  ranks  by  itself  as  one  of  the  purest  works  of  hu 
man  fancy ;  whether  that  fancy  be  strictly  poetical 
or  not  is  another  matter.  If  we  compare  it  with 
the  "  Midsummer-night's  Dream,"  an  uncomforta 
ble  doubt  is  suggested.  The  perfection  of  form  in 
the  "  Rape  of  the  Lock  "  is  to  me  conclusive  evi 
dence  that  in  it  the  natural  genius  of  Pope  found 
fuller  and  freer  expression  than  in  any  other  of  his 
poems.  The  others  are  aggregates  of  brilliant  pas 
sages  rather  than  harmonious  wholes. 

It  is  a  droll  illustration  of  the  inconsistencies  of 
human  nature,  a  more  profound  satire  than  Pope 
himself  ever  wrote,  that  his  fame  should  chiefly 
rest  upon  the  "  Essay  on  Man."  It  has  been 
praised  and  admired  by  men  of  the  most  opposite 
beliefs,  and  men  of  no  belief  at  all.  Bishops  and 
free-thinkers  have  met  here  on  a  common  ground 
of  sympathetic  approval.  And,  indeed,  there  is 
no  particular  faith  in  it.  It  is  a  droll  medley  of 
inconsistent  opinions.  It  proves  only  two  things 
beyond  a  question,  —  that  Pope  was  not  a  great 
thinker  ;  and  that  wherever  he  found  a  thought, 
no  matter  what,  he  could  express  it  so  tersely,  so 
clearly,  and  with  such  smoothness  of  versification 
as  to  give  it  an  everlasting  currency.  Hobbes's  un 
wieldy  Leviathan,  left  stranded  there  on  the  shore 
of  the  last  age,  and  nauseous  with  the  stench  of  its 


POPE  37 

selfishness,  —  from  this  Pope  distilled  a  fragrant 
oil  with  which  to  fill  the  brilliant  lamps  of  his  phi 
losophy,  —  lamps  like  those  in  the  tombs  of  alche 
mists,  that  go  out  the  moment  the  healthy  air  is  let 
in  upon  them.  The  only  positive  doctrines  in  the 
poem  are  the  selfishness  of  Hobbes  set  to  music, 
and  the  Pantheism  of  Spinoza  brought  down  from 
mysticism  to  commonplace.  Nothing  can  be  more 
absurd  than  many  of  the  dogmas  taught  in  this 
"  Essay  on  Man."  For  example,  Pope  affirms  ex-- 
plicitly  that  instinct  is  something  better  than  rea 
son  :  — 

"  See  him  from  Nature  rising  slow  to  art, 
To  copy  instinct  then  was  reason's  part  ; 
Thus,  then,  to  man  the  voice  of  nature  spake  ;  — 
Go,  from  the  creatures  thy  instructions  take ; 
Learn  from  the  beasts  what  food  the  thickets  yield ; 
Learn  from  the  birds  the  physic  of  the  field ; 
The  arts  of  building  from  the  bee  receive ; 
Learn  of  the  mole  to  plough,  the  worm  to  weave  ; 
Learn  of  the  little  nautilus  to  sail, 
Spread  the  thin  oar,  or  catch  the  driving  gale." 

I  say  nothing  of  the  quiet  way  in  which  the  gen 
eral  term  "  nature  "  is  substituted  for  God,  but 
how  unutterably  void  of  reasonableness  is  the  the 
ory  that  Nature  would  have  left  her  highest  prod 
uct,  man,  destitute  of  that  instinct  with  which  she 
had  endowed  her  other  creatures  !  As  if  reason 
were  not  the  most  sublimated  form  of  instinct. 
The  accuracy  on  which  Pope  prided  himself,  and 
for  which  he  is  commended,  was  not  accuracy  of 
thought  so  much  as  of  expression.  And  he  can 
not  always  even  claim  this  merit,  but  only  that  of 
correct  rhyme,  as  in  one  of  the  passages  I  have 


38  POPE 

already  quoted  from  the  "  Rape  of  the  Lock "  he 
talks  of  casting  shrieks  to  heaven,  —  a  performance 
of  some  difficulty,  except  when  cast  is  needed  to 
rhyme  with  last. 

But  the  supposition  is  that  in  the  "  Essay  on 
Man  "  Pope  did  not  himself  know  what  he  was 
writing.  He  was  only  the  condenser  and  epigram- 
inatizer  of  Bolingbroke,  —  a  very  fitting  St.  John 
for  such  a  gospel.  Or,  if  he  did  know,  we  can 
account  for  the  contradictions  by  supposing  that 
he  threw  in  some  of  the  commonplace  moralities 
to  conceal  his  real  drift.  Johnson  asserts  that 
Bolingbroke  in  private  laughed  at  Pope's  having 
been  made  the  mouthpiece  of  opinions  which  he  did 
not  hold.  But  this  is  hardly  probable  when  we 
consider  the  relations  between  them.  It  is  giving 
Pope  altogether  too  little  credit  for  intelligence  to 
suppose  that  he  did  not  understand  the  principles 
of  his  intimate  friend.  The  caution  with  which  he 
at  first  concealed  the  authorship  would  argue  that 
he  had  doubts  as  to  the  reception  of  the  poem. 
When  it  was  attacked  on  the  score  of  infidelity,  he 
gladly  accepted  Warburton's  championship,  and 
assumed  whatever  pious  interpretation  he  contrived 
to  thrust  upon  it.  The  beginning  of  the  poem  is 
familiar  to  everybody :  — 

"  Awake,  my  St.  John,  leave  all  meaner  things 
To  low  ambition  and  the  pride  of  kings  ; 
Let  us  (since  life  can  little  more  supply 
Than  just  to  look  about  us  and  to  die) 
Expatiate  free  o'er  all  this  scene  of  man, 
A  mighty  maze,  —  but  not  without  a  plan  "  ; 

To  expatiate  o'er  a  mighty  maze  is  rather  loose 


POPE  39 

writing,  but  the  last  verse,  as  it  stood  in  the  orig 
inal  editions,  was, 

"  A  mighty  maze  of  walks  without  a  plan ;  " 

and  perhaps  this  came  nearer  Pope's  real  opinion 
than  the  verse  he  substituted  for  it.  Warburton 
is  careful  not  to  mention  this  variation  in  his  notes. 
The  poem  is  everywhere  as  remarkable  for  its  con 
fusion  of  logic  as  it  often  is  for  ease  of  verse  and 
grace  of  expression.  An  instance  of  both  occurs 
in  a  passage  frequently  quoted :  — 

"  Heaven  from  all  creatures  hides  the  book  of  fate ; 
All  but  the  page  prescribed,  their  present  state  ; 
From  brutes  what  men,  from  men  whai;  spirits  know, 
Or  who  would  suffer  being  here  below  ? 
The  lamb  thy  riot  dooms  to  bleed  to-day, 
Had  he  thy  reason,  would  he  skip  and  play  ? 
Pleased  to  the  last,  he  crops  the  flowery  food, 
And  licks  the  hand  just  raised  to  shed  his  blood. 
O,  blindness  to  the  future  kindly  given 
That  each  may  fill  the  circle  meant  by  heaven ! 
Who  sees  with  equal  eye,  as  God  of  all, 
A  hero  perish  or  a  sparrow  fall, 
Atoms  or  systems  into  ruin  hurled, 
And  now  a  bubble  burst,  and  now  a  world !  " 

Now,  if  "  heaven  from  all  creatures  hides  the  book 
of  fate,"  why  should  not  the  lamb  "  skip  and  play," 
if  he  had  the  reason  of  man  ?  Why,  because  he 
would  then  be  able  to  read  the  book  of  fate.  But 
if  man  himself  cannot,  why,  then,  could  the  lamb 
with  the  reason  of  man  ?  For,  if  the  lamb  had 
the  reason  of  man,  the  book  of  fate  would  still 
be  hidden,  so  far  as  himself  was  concerned.  If 
the  inferences  we  can  draw  from  appearances  are 
equivalent  to  a  knowledge  of  destiny,  the  know- 


40  POPE 

ing  enough  to  take  an  umbrella  in  cloudy  weather 
might  be  called  so.  There  is  a  manifest  confu 
sion  between  what  we  know  about  ourselves  and 
about  other  people ;  the  whole  point  of  the  pas 
sage  being  that  we  are  always  mercifully  blinded 
to  our  own  future,  however  much  reason  we  may 
possess.  There  is  also  inaccuracy  as  well  as  inele 
gance  in  saying, 

"Heaven, 

Who  sees  with  equal  eye,  as  God  of  all, 
A  hero  perish  or  a  sparrow  fall." 

To  the  last  verse  Warburton,  desirous  of  reconcil 
ing  his  author  with  Scripture,  appends  a  note  re 
ferring  to  Matthew  x.  29  :  "  Are  not  two  sparrows 
sold  for  one  farthing  ?  and  one  of  them  shall  not 
fall  to  the  ground  without  your  Father."  It  would 
not  have  been  safe  to  have  referred  to  the  thirty- 
first  verse :  "  Fear  ye  not,  therefore,  ye  are  of  more 
value  than  many  sparrows." 

To  my  feeling,  one  of  the  most  beautiful  pas 
sages  in  the  whole  poem  is  that  familiar  one :  — 

"  Lo,  the  poor  Indian  whose  untutored  mind 
Sees  God  in  clouds,  or  hears  him  in  the  wind, 
His  soul  proud  science  never  taught  to  stray 
Far  as  the  solar  walk  or  milky  way : 
Yet  simple  Nature  to  his  hope  has  given 
Behind  the  cloud-topt  hill  a  humbler  heaven ; 
Some  safer  world  in  depth  of  woods  embraced, 
Some  happier  island  in  the  watery  waste, 
Where  slaves  once  more  their  native  land  behold, 
No  fiends  torment,  no  Christians  thirst  for  gold. 
To  be  contents  his  natural  desire, 
He  asks  no  angel's  wing,  no  seraph's  fire, 
But  thinks,  admitted  to  that  equal  sky, 
His  faithful  dog  shall  bear  him  company." 


POPE  41 

But  this  comes  in  as  a  corollary  to  what  went  just 
before :  — 

"  Hope  springs  eternal  in  the  human  breast, 
Mau  never  is  but  always  to  be  blest ; 
The  soul,  uneasy,  and  confined  from  home, 
Rests  and  expatiates  in  a  life  to  come." 

Then  follows  immediately  the  passage  about  the 
poor  Indian,  who,  after  all,  it  seems,  is  contented 
with  merely  being,  and  whose  soul,  therefore,  is 
an  exception  to  the  general  rule.  And  what  have 
the  "  solar  walk "  (as  he  calls  it)  and  "  milky 
way "  to  do  with  the  affair  ?  Does  our  hope  of 
heaven  depend  on  our  knowledge  of  astronomy  ? 
Or  does  he  mean  that  science  and  faith  are  neces 
sarily  hostile  ?  And,  after  being  told  that  it  is 
the  "  untutored  mind  "  of  the  savage  which  "  sees 
God  in  clouds  and  hears  him  in  the  wind,"  we  are 
rather  surprised  to  find  that  the  lesson  the  poet  in 
tends  to  teach  is  that 

"  All  are  but  parts  of  one  stupendous  whole, 
Whose  body  Nature  is,  and  God  the  soul, 
That,  changed  through  all,  and  yet  in  all  the  same, 
Great  in  the  earth,  as  in  the  ethereal  frame, 
Warms  in  the  sun,  refreshes  in  the  breeze, 
Glows  in  the  stars,  and  blossoms  in  the  trees." 

t$o  that  we  are  no  better  off  than  the  untutored 
Indian,  after  the  poet  has  tutored  us.  Dr.  War- 
burton  makes  a  rather  lame  attempt  to  ward  off 
the  charge  of  Spinozism  from  this  last  passage. 
He  would  have  found  it  harder  to  show  that  the 
acknowledgment  of  any  divine  revelation  would 
not  overturn  the  greater  part  of  its  teachings.  If 
Pope  intended  by  his  poem  all  that  the  bishop 


42  POPE 

takes  for  granted  in  his  commentary,  we  must 
deny  him  what  is  usually  claimed  as  his  first  merit, 
—  clearness.  If  he  did  not,  we  grant  him  clear 
ness  as  a  writer  at  the  expense  of  sincerity  as  a 
man.  Perhaps  a  more  charitable  solution  of  the 
difficulty  would  be,  that  Pope's  precision  of  thought 
was  no  match  for  the  fluency  of  his  verse. 

Lord  Byron  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  in  speaking 
of  Pope,  that  he  who  executes  the  best,  no  matter 
what  his  department,  will  rank  the  highest.  I 
think  there  are  enough  indications  in  these  letters 
of  Byron's,  however,  that  they  were  written  rather 
more  against  Wordsworth  than  for  Pope.  The 
rule  he  lays  down  would  make  Voltaire  a  greater 
poet,  in  some  respects,  than  Shakespeare.  Byron 
cites  Petrarch  as  an  example ;  yet  if  Petrarch  had 
put  nothing  more  into  his  sonnets  than  execution, 
there  are  plenty  of  Italian  sonneteers  who  would 
be  his  match.  But,  in  point  of  fact,  the  depart 
ment  chooses  the  man  and  not  the  man  the  depart 
ment,  and  it  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  our  esti 
mate  of  him.  Is  the  department  of  Milton  no 
higher  than  that  of  Butler  ?  Byron  took  especial 
care  not  to  write  in  the  style  he  commended.  But 
I  think  Pope  has  received  quite  as  much  credit  in 
respect  even  of  execution  as  he  deserves.  Surely 
execution  is  not  confined  to  versification  alone. 
What  can  be  worse  than  this  ? 

"  At  length  Erasmus,  that  great,  injured  name^ 
(The  glory  of  the  priesthood  and  the  shame,) 
Stemmed  the  wild  torrent  of  a  harbarous  age, 
And  drove  those  holy  vandals  off  the  stage. ' ' 


POPE  43 

It  would  have  been  hard  for  Pope  to  have  found  a 
prettier  piece  of  confusion  in  any  of  the  small 
authors  he  laughed  at  than  this  image  of  a  great, 
injured  name  stemming  a  torrent  and  driving  van 
dals  off  the  stage.  And  in  the  following  verses 
the  image  is  helplessly  confused  :  — 

"  Kind  self-conceit  to  some  her  glass  applies, 
Which  no  one  looks 'in  with  another's  eyes, 
But,  as  the  flatterer  or  dependant  paint, 
Beholds  himself  a  patriot,  chief,  or  saint." 

The  use  of  the  word  "applies"  is  perfectly  un- 
English  ;  and  it  seems  that  people  who  look  in  this 
remarkable  glass  see  their  pictures  and  not  their 
reflections.  Often,  also,  when  Pope  attempts  the 
sublime,  his  epithets  become  curiously  unpoetical, 
as  where  he  says,  in  the  Dunciad, 

"  As,  one  hy  one,  at  dread  Medea's  strain, 
The  sickening  stars  fade  off  the  ethereal  plain.'" 

And  not  seldom  he  is  satisfied  with  the  music  of 
the  verse  without  much  regard  to  fitness  of  im 
agery  ;  in  the  "  Essay  on  Man,"  for  example :  — 

"  Passions,  like  elements,  though  born  to  fight, 
Yet,  mixed  and  softened,  in  his  work  unite  ; 
These  't  is  enough  to  temper  and  employ  ; 
But  what  composes  man  can  man  destroy  ? 
Suffice  that  Keason  keep  to  Nature's  road, 
Subject,  compound  them,  follow  her  and  God. 
Love,  Hope,  and  Joy,  fair  Pleasure's  smiling  train, 
Hate,  Fear,  and  Grief,  the  family  of  Pain, 
These,  mixed  with  Art,  and  to  due  bounds  confined, 
Make  and  maintain  the  balance  of  the  mind. ' ' 

Here  reason  is  represented  as  an  apothecary  com 
pounding  pills  of  "pleasure's  smiling  train"  and 
the  "  family  of  pain."  And  in  the  Moral  Essays, 


44  POPE 

"  Know  God  and  Nature  only  are  the  same ; 
In  man  the  judgment  shoots  at  flying  game, 
A  bird  of  passage,  gone  as  soon  as  found, 
Now  in  the  moon,  perhaps,  now  under  ground. " 

The  "  judgment  shooting  at  flying  game  "  is  an  odd 
image  enough  ;  but  I  think  a  bird  of  passage,  now 
in  the  moon  and  now  under  ground,  could  be  found 
nowhere  —  out  of  Goldsmith's  Natural  History,  per 
haps.  An  epigrammatic  expression  will  also  tempt 
him  into  saying  something  without  basis  in  truth, 
as  where  he  ranks  together  "  Macedonia's  madman 
and  the  Swede,"  and  says  that  neither  of  them 
"  looked  forward  farther  than  his  nose,"  a  slang 
phrase  which  may  apply  well  enough  to  Charles 
XII.,  but  certainly  not  to  the  pupil  of  Aristotle, 
who  showed  himself  capable  of  a  large  political 
forethought.  So,  too,  the  rhyme,  if  correct,  is  a 
sufficient  apology  for  want  of  propriety  in  phrase, 
as  where  he  makes  "  Socrates  bleed." 

But  it  is  in  his  Moral  Essays  and  parts  of  his 
Satires  that  Pope  deserves  the  praise  which  he 
himself  desired :  — 

"  Happily  to  steer 

Prom  grave  to  gay,  from  lively  to  severe, 
Correct  with  spirit,  eloquent  with  ease, 
Intent  to  reason,  or  polite  to  please." 

Here  Pope  must  be  allowed  to  have  established  a 
style  of  his  own,  in  which  he  is  without  a  rival. 
One  can  open  upon  wit  and  epigram  at  any  page. 

"  Behold,  if  Fortune  or  a  mistress  frowns, 

Some  plunge  in  business,  other  shave  their  crowns ; 
To  ease  the  soul  of  one  oppressive  weight, 
This  quite  an  empire,  that  embroils  a  state ; 


POPE  45 

The  same  adust  complexion  has  impelled, 
Charles  to  the  convent,  Philip  to  the  field." 

Indeed,  I  think  one  gets  a  little  tired  of  the  in 
variable  this  set  off  by  the  inevitable  that,  and 
wishes  antithesis  would  let  him  have  a  little  quiet 
now  and  then.  In  the  first  couplet,  too,  the  con 
ditional  "  frown  "  would  have  been  more  elegant. 
But  taken  as  detached  passages,  how  admirably  the 
different  characters  are  drawn,  so  admirably  that 
half  the  verses  have  become  proverbial.  This  of 
Addison  will  bear  reading  again  :  — 

"  Peace  to  all  such  ;  but  were  there  one  whose  fires 
True  genius  kindles  and  fair  fame  inspires ; 
Blest  with  each  talent  and  each  art  to  please, 
And  born  to  write,  converse,  and  live  with  ease  ; 
Should  such  a  man,  too  fond  to  rule  alone, 
Bear  like  the  Turk  no  brother  near  the  throne, 
View  Jiim  with  scornful  yet  with  jealous  eyes, 
And  hate  for  arts  that  caused  himself  to  rise, 
Damn  with  faint  praise,  assent  with  civil  leer, 
And,  without  sneering,  teach  the  rest  to  sneer ; 
Willing  to  wound  and  yet  afraid  to  strike, 
Just  hint  a  fault  and  hesitate  dislike, 
Alike  reserved  to  blame  or  to  commend, 
A  timorous  foe  and  a  suspicious  friend ; 
Dreading  e'en  fools,  by  flatterers  besieged, 
And  so  obliging  that  he  ne'er  obliged ; 
Like  Cato  give  his  little  Senate  laws, 
And  sit  attentive  to  his  own  applause, 
While  wits  and  templars  every  sentence  raise, 
And  wonder  with  a  foolish  face  of  praise  ;  — 
Who  but  must  laugh  if  such  a  man  there  be  ? 
Who  would  not  weep  if  Atticus  were  he  ?  " 

With  the  exception  of  the  somewhat  technical  im 
age  in  the  second  verse  of  Fame  blowing  the  fire 
of  genius,  which  too  much  puts  us  in  mind  of  the 


46  POPE 

frontispieces  of  the  day,  surely  nothing  better  of 
its  kind  was  ever  written.  How  applicable  it  was 
to  Addison  I  shall  consider  in  another  place.  As 
an  accurate  intellectual  observer  and  describer  of 
personal  weaknesses,  Pope  stands  by  himself  in 
English  verse. 

In  his  epistle  on  the  characters  of  women,  no  one 
who  has  ever  known  a  noble  woman,  nay,  I  should 
almost  say  no  one  who  ever  had  a  mother  or  sister, 
will  find  much  to  please  him.  The  climax  of  his 
praise  rather  degrades  than  elevates. 

"  0,  blest  in  temper,  whose  unclouded  ray 
Can  make  to-morrow  cheerful  as  to-day, 
She  who  can  love  a  sister's  charms,  or  hear 
Sighs  for  a  daughter  with  unwounded  ear, 
She  who  ne'er  answers  till  a  husband  cools, 
Or,  if  she  rules  him,  never  shows  she  rules, 
Charms  by  accepting,  by  submitting  sways, 
Yet  has  her  humor  most  when  she  obeys ; 
Lets  fops  or  fortune  fly  which  way  they  will, 
Disdains  all  loss  of  tickets  or  codille, 
Spleen,  vapors,  or  smallpox,  above  them  all 
And  mistress  of  herself,  though  china  fall." 

The  last  line  is  very  witty  and  pointed,  —  but  con 
sider  what  an  ideal  of  womanly  nobleness  he  must 
have  had,  who  praises  his  heroine  for  not  being 
jealous  of  her  daughter.  Addison,  in  commending 
Pope's  "  Essay  on  Criticism,"  says,  speaking  of  us 
"  who  live  in  the  latter  ages  of  the  world  "  :  "  We 
have  little  else  to  do  left  us  but  to  represent  the 
common  sense  of  mankind,  in  more  strong,  more 
beautiful,  or  more  uncommon  lights."  I  think  he 
has  here  touched  exactly  the  point  of  Pope's  merit, 
and,  in  doing  so,  tacitly  excludes  him  from  the 


POPE  47 

position  of  poet,  in  the  highest  sense.  Take  two  of 
Jeremy  Taylor's  prose  sentences  about  the  Coun 
tess  of  Carbery,  the  lady  in  Milton's  "  Comus  "  : 
"  The  religion  of  this  excellent  lady  was  of  another 
constitution  :  it  took  root  downward  in  humility, 
and  brought  forth  fruit  upward  in  the  substantial 
graces  of  a  Christian,  in  charity  and  justice,  in 
chastity  and  modesty,  in  fair  friendships  and  sweet 
ness  of  society.  .  .  .  And  though  she  had  the  great 
est  judgment,  and  the  greatest  experience  of  things 
and  persons  I  ever  yet  knew  in  a  person  of  her 
youth  and  sex  and  circumstances,  yet,  as  if  she 
knew  nothing  of  it,  she  had  the  meanest  opinion  of 
herself,  and  like  a  fair  taper,  when  she  shined  to  all 
the  room,  yet  round  about  her  station  she  had  cast 
a  shadow  and  a  cloud,  and  she  shined  to  everybody 
but  herself."  This  is  poetry,  though  not  in  verse. 
The  plays  of  the  elder  dramatists  are  not  without 
examples  of  weak  and  vile  women,  but  they  are  not 
without  noble  ones  either.  Take  these  verses  of 
Chapman,  for  example :  — 

"  I  jet  no  man  value  at  a  little  price 
A  virtuous  woman's  counsel :   her  winged  spirit 
Is  feathered  oftentimes  with  noble  words 
And,  like  her  beauty,  ravishing  and  pure  ; 
The  weaker  body,  still  the  stronger  soul. 
O,  what  a  treasure  is  a  virtuous  wife, 
Discreet  and  loving.     Not  one  gift  on  earth 
Makes  a  man's  life  so  nighly  bound  to  heaven. 
She  gives  him  double  forces  to  endure 
And  to  enjoy,  being  one  with  him, 
Feeling  his  joys  and  griefs  with  equal  sense : 
If  he  fetch  sighs,  she  draws  her  breath  as  short ; 
If  he  lament,  she  melts  herself  in  tears ; 
If  he  be  glad,  she  triumphs ;  if  he  stir, 


48  POPE 

She  moves  his  way,  in  all  things  his  sweet  ape, 
Himself  divinely  varied  without  change. 
All  store  without  her  leaves  a  man  but  poor, 
And  with  her  poverty  is  exceeding  store." 

Pope  in  the  characters  I  have  read  was  drawing  his 
ideal  woman,  for  he  says  at  the  end  that  she  shall 
be  his  muse.  The  sentiments  are  those  of  a  bour 
geois  and  of  the  back  parlor,  more  than  of  the  poet 
and  the  muse's  bower.  A  man's  mind  is  known  by 
the  company  it  keeps. 

Now  it  is  very  possible  that  the  women  of  Pope's 
time  were  as  bad  as  they  could  be  ;  but  if  God  made 
poets  for  anything,  it  was  to  keep  alive  the  traditions 
of  the  pure,  the  holy,  and  the  beautiful.  I  grant 
the  influence  of  the  age,  but  there  is  a  sense  in 
which  the  poet  is  of  no  age,  and  Beauty,  driven 
from  every  other  home,  will  never  be  an  outcast 
and  a  wanderer,  while  there  is  a  poet's  nature  left, 
will  never  fail  of  the  tribute  at  least  of  a  song.  It 
seems  to  me  that  Pope  had  a  sense  of  the  neat  rather 
than  of  the  beautiful.  His  nature  delighted  more 
in  detecting  the  blemish  than  in  enjoying  the  charm. 

However  great  his  merit  in  expression,  I  think  it 
impossible  that  a  true  poet  could  have  written  such 
a  satire  as  the  Dunciad,  which  is  even  nastier  than 
it  is  witty.  It  is  filthy  even  in  a  filthy  age,  and 
Swift  himself  could  not  have  gone  beyond  some 
parts  of  it.  One's  mind  needs  to  be  sprinkled  with 
some  disinfecting  fluid  after  reading  it.  I  do  not 
remember  that  any  other  poet  ever  made  poverty  a 
crime.  And  it  is  wholly  without  discrimination. 
De  Foe  is  set  in  the  pillory  forever ;  and  George 


POPE  49 

Wither,  the  author  of  that  charming  poem,  "  Fair 
Virtue,"  classed  among  the  dunces.  And  was  it 
not  in  this  age  that  loose  Dick  Steele  paid  his  wife 
the  finest  compliment  ever  paid  to  woman,  when  he 
said  "  that  to  love  her  was  a  liberal  education  "  ? 

Even  in  the  "  Rape  of  the  Lock,"  the  fancy  is  that 
of  a  wit  rather  than  of  a  poet.  It  might  not  be  just 
to  compare  his  Sylphs  with  the  Fairies  of  Shake 
speare  ;  but  contrast  the  kind  of  fancy  shown  in 
the  poem  with  that  of  Drayton's  Nymphidia,  for 
example.  I  will  give  one  stanza  of  it,  describing 
the  palace  of  the  Fairy :  — 

"  The  walls  of  spider's  kgs  were  made, 
Well  mortised,  and  finely  laid : 
(He  was  the  master  of  his  trade 
It  curiously  that  builded : ) 
The  windows  of  the  eyes  of  cats, 
And,  for  the  roof,  instead  of  slats 
'T  is  covered  with  the  skins  of  bats, 
With  moonshine  that  are  gilded." 

In  the  last  line  the  eye  and  fancy  of  a  poet  are  rec 
ognized. 

Personally  we  know  more  about  Pope  than  about 
any  of  our  poets.  He  kept  no  secrets  about  himself. 
If  he  did  not  let  the  cat  out  of  the  bag,  he  always 
contrived  to  give  her  tail  a  wrench  so  that  we  might 
know  she  was  there.  In  spite  of  the  savageness 
of  his  satires,  his  natural  disposition  seems  to  have 
been  an  amiable  one,  and  his  character  as  an  author 
was  as  purely  factitious  as  his  style.  Dr.  Johnson 
appears  to  have  suspected  his  sincerity  ;  but  artifice 
more  than  insincerity  lay  at  the  basis  of  his  charac 
ter.  I  think  that  there  was  very  little  real  malice 


60  POPE 

in  him,  and  that  his  "  evil  was  wrought  from  want 
of  thought."  When  Dennis  was  old  and  poor,  he 
wrote  a  prologue  for  a  play  to  be  acted  for  his  ben 
efit.  Except  Addison,  he  numbered  among  his 
friends  the  most  illustrious  men  of  his  time. 

The  correspondence  of  Pope  is,  on  the  whole,  less 
interesting  than  that  of  any  other  eminent  English 
poet,  except  that  of  Southey,  and  their  letters  have 
the  same  fault  of  being  labored  compositions. 
Southey's  are,  on  the  whole,  the  more  agreeable  of 
the  two,  for  they  inspire  one  (as  Pope's  certainly 
do  not)  with  a  sincere  respect  for  the  character  of 
the  writer.  Pope's  are  altogether  too  full  of  the 
proclamation  of  his  own  virtues  to  be  pleasant  read 
ing.  It  is  plain  that  they  were  mostly  addressed 
to  the  public,  perhaps  even  to  posterity.  But  let 
ters,  however  carefully  drilled  to  be  circumspect, 
are  sure  to  blab,  and  those  of  Pope  leave  in  the 
reader's  mind  an  unpleasant  feeling  of  circumspec 
tion,  —  of  an  attempt  to  look  as  an  eminent  literary 
character  should  rather  than  as  the  man  really  was. 
They  have  the  unnatural  constraint  of  a  man  in 
full  dress  sitting  for  his  portrait  and  endeavoring 
to  look  his  best.  We  never  catch  him,  if  he  can 
help  it,  at  unawares.  Among  all  Pope's  corre 
spondents,  Swift  shows  in  the  most  dignified  and, 
one  is  tempted  to  say,  the  most  amiable  light.  It 
is  creditable  to  the  Dean  that  the  letters  which 
Pope  addressed  to  him  are  by  far  the  most  simple 
and  straightforward  of  any  that  he  wrote.  No 
sham  could  encounter  those  terrible  eyes  in  Dublin 
without  wincing.  "I  think,  on  the  whole,  that  a 


POPE  51 

revision  of  judgment  would  substitute  "  discomfort 
ing  consciousness  of  the  public  "  for  "  insincerity  " 
in  judging  Pope's  character  by  his  letters.  He 
could  not  shake  off  the  habits  of  the  author,  and 
never,  or  almost  never,  in  prose,  acquired  that 
knack  of  seeming  carelessness  that  makes  Wai- 
pole's  elaborate  compositions  such  agreeable  read 
ing.  Pope  would  seem  to  have  kept  a  common 
place  book  of  phrases  proper  to  this  or  that  occa 
sion  ;  and  he  transfers  a  compliment,  a  fine  moral 
sentiment,  nay,  even  sometimes  a  burst  of  passion 
ate  ardor,  from  one  correspondent  to  another,  with 
the  most  cold-blooded  impartiality.  We're  it  not 
for  this  curious  economy  of  his,  no  one  could  read 
his  letters  to  Lady  Wortley  Montagu  without  a 
conviction  that  they  were  written  by  a  lover.  In 
deed,  I  think  nothing  short  of  the  spretce  injuria 
formce  will  account  for  (though  it  will  not  excuse) 
the  savage  vindictiveness  he  felt  and  .showed  to 
wards  her.  It  may  be  suspected  also  that  the  bit 
terness  of  caste  added  gall  to  his  resentment.  His 
enemy  wore  that  impenetrable  armor  of  superior 
rank  which  rendered  her  indifference  to  his  shafts 
the  more  provoking  that  it  was  unaffected.  Even 
for  us  his  satire  loses  its  sting  when  we  reflect  that 
it  is  not  in  human  nature  for  a  woman  to  have  had 
two  such  utterly  irreconcilable  characters  as  those 
of  Lady  Mary  before  and  after  her  quarrel  with 
the  poet.  In  any  view  of  Pope's  conduct  in  this 
affair,  there  is  an  ill  savor  in  his  attempting  to  de 
grade  a  woman  whom  he  had  once  made  sacred  with 
his  love.  Spenser  touches  the  right  chord  when  he 
says  of  the  Rosalinde  who  had  rejected  him, 


52  POPE 

"  Not,  then,  to  her,  that  scorned  thing  so  base, 
But  to  myself  the  blame,  that  lookt  so  high  ; 
Yet  so  much  grace  let  her  vouchsafe  to  grant 
To  simple  swain,  sith  her  I  may  not  love, 
Tet  that  I  may  her  honor  paravant 
And  praise  her  worth,  though  far  my  wit  above ; 
Such  grace  shall  be  some  guerdon  of  the  grief 
And  long  affliction  which  I  have  endured." 

In  his  correspondence  with  Aaron  Hill,  Pope, 
pushed  to  the  wall,  appears  positively  mean.  He 
vainly  endeavors  to  show  that  his  personalities  had 
all  been  written  in  the  interests  of  literature  and 
morality,  and  from  no  selfish  motive.  But  it  is 
hard  to  believe  that  Theobald  would  have  been 
deemed  worthy  of  his  disgustful  preeminence  but 
for  the  manifest  superiority  of  his  edition  of  Shake 
speare,  or  that  Addison  would  have  been  so  adroitly 
disfigured  unless  through  wounded  self-love.  It  is 
easy  to  conceive  the  resentful  shame  which  Pope 
must  have  felt  when  Addison  so  almost  contempt 
uously  disavowed  all  complicity  in  his  volunteer  de 
fence  of  Cato  in  a  brutal  assault  on  Dennis.  Pope 
had  done  a  mean  thing  to  propitiate  a  man  whose 
critical  judgment  he  dreaded ;  and  the  great  man, 
instead  of  thanking  him,  had  resented  his  interfer 
ence  as  impertinent.  In  the  whole  portrait  of  At- 
ticus  one  cannot  help  feeling  that  Pope's  satire  is 
not  founded  on  knowledge,  but  rather  on  what  his 
own  sensitive  suspicion  divined  of  the  opinions  of 
one  whose  expressed  preferences  in  poetry  implied 
a  condemnation  of  the  very  grounds  of  the  satirist's 
own  popularity.  We  shall  not  so  easily  give  up 
the  purest  and  most  dignified  figure  of  that  some- 


POPE  53 

what  vulgar  generation,  who  ranks  with  Sidney  and 
Spenser  as  one  of  the  few  perfect  gentlemen  in  our 
literary  annals.  A  man  who  could  command  the 
unswerving  loyalty  of  honest  and  impulsive  Dick 
Steele  could  not  have  been  a  coward  or  a  backbiter. 
The  only  justification  alleged  by  Pope  was  of  the 
flimsiest  kind,  namely,  that  Addison  regretted  the 
introduction  of  the  sylphs  in  the  second  edition  of 
the  "  Rape  of  the  Lock,"  saying  that  the  poem  was 
merum  sal  before.  Let  any  one  ask  himself  how 
he  likes  an  author's  emendations  of  any  poem  to 
which  his  ear  had  adapted  itself  in  its  former  shape, 
and  he  will  hardly  think  it  needful  to  charge  Ad 
dison  with  any  mean  motive  for  his  conservatism 
in  this  matter.  One  or  two  of  Pope's  letters  are  so 
good  as  to  make  us  regret  that  he  did  not  oftener 
don  the  dressing-gown  and  slippers  in  his  corre 
spondence.  One  in  particular,  to  Lord  Burlington, 
describing  a  journey  on  horseback  to  Oxford  with 
Lintot  the  bookseller,  is  full  of  a  lightsome  humor 
worthy  of  Cowper,  almost  worthy  of  Gray. 

Joseph  Warton,  in  summing  up  at  the  end  of  his 
essay  on  the  genius  and  writings  of  Pope,  says  that 
the  largest  part  of  his  works  "  is  of  the  didac 
tic,  moral,  and  satiric  ;  and,  consequently,  not  of 
the  most  poetic  species  of  poetry ;  whence  it  is 
manifest  that  good  sense  and  judgment  were  his 
characteristical  excellences  rather  than  fancy  and 
invention."  It  is  plain  that  in  any  strict  definition 
there  can  be  only  one  kind  of  poetry,  and  that  what 
Warton  really  meant  to  say  was  that  Pope  was  not 
a  poet  at  all.  This,  I  think,  is  shown  by  what 


54  POPE 

Johnson  says  in  his  "Life  of  Pope,"  though  he 
does  not  name  Warton.  The  dispute  on  this  point 
went  on  with  occasional  lulls  for  more  than  a  half- 
century  after  Warton's  death.  It  was  renewed 
with  peculiar  acrimony  when  the  Rev.  W.  L. 
Bowles  diffused  and  confused  Warton's  critical 
opinions  in  his  own  peculiarly  helpless  way  in  edit 
ing  a  new  edition  of  Pope  in  1806.  Bowles  en 
tirely  mistook  the  functions  of  an  editor,  and  mal- 
adroitly  entangled  his  judgment  of  the  poetry  with 
his  estimate  of  the  author's  character.1  Thirteen 
years  later,  Campbell,  in  his  "  Specimens,"  contro 
verted  Mr.  Bowles's  estimate  of  Pope's  character 
and  position,  both  as  man  and  poet.  Mr.  Bowles 
replied  in  a  letter  to  Campbell  on  what  he  called 
"  the  invariable  principles  of  poetry."  This  letter 
was  in  turn  somewhat  sharply  criticised  by  Gil- 
christ  in  the  Quarterly  Review.  Mr.  Bowles  made 
an  angry  'and  unmannerly  retort,  among  other 
things  charging  Gilchrist  with  the  crime  of  being 
a  tradesman's  son,  whereupon  the  affair  became 
what  they  call  on  the  frontier  a  free  fight,  in  which 
Gilchrist,  Roscoe,  the  elder  Disraeli,  and  Byron 
took  part  with  equal  relish,  though  with  various 
fortune.  The  last  shot,  in  what  had  grown  into 
a  thirty  years'  war,  between  the  partisans  of  what 

1  Bowles's  Sonnets,  wellnigh  f orgotten  now,  did  more  than  his 
controversial  writings  for  the  cause  he  advocated.  Their  influence 
upon  the  coming  generation  was  great  (greater  than  we  can  well 
account  for)  and  beneficial.  Coleridge  tells  us  that  he  made  forty 
copies  of  them  while  at  Christ's  Hospital.  Wordsworth's  prefaces 
first  made  imagination  the  true  test  of  poetry,  in  its  more  mod 
ern  sense.  But  they  drew  little  notice  till  later. 


POPE  55 

was  called  the  Old  School  of  poetry  and  those  of 
the  New,  was  fired  by  Bowles  in  1826.  Bowles,  in 
losing  his  temper,  lost  also  what  little  logic  he  had, 
and  though,  in  a  vague  way,  aesthetically  right,  con 
trived  always  to  be  argumentatively  wrong.  Anger 
made  worse  confusion  in  a  brain  never  very  clear, 
and  he  had  neither  the  scholarship  nor  the  critical 
faculty  for  a  vigorous  exposition  of  his  own  thesis. 
Never  was  wilder  hitting  than  his,  and  he  laid 
himself  open  to  dreadful  punishment,  especially 
from  Byron,  whose  two  letters  are  masterpieces  of 
polemic  prose.  Bowles  most  happily  exemplified 
in  his  own  pamphlets  what  was  really  the  turning- 
point  of  the  whole  controversy  (though  all  the 
combatants  more  or  less  lost  sight  of  it  or  never 
saw  it),  namely,  that  without  clearness  and  terse 
ness  there  could  be  no  good  writing,  whether  in 
prose  or  verse ;  in  other  words  that,  while  precision 
of  phrase  presupposes  lucidity  of  thought,  yet  good 
writing  is  an  art  as  well  as  a  gift.  Byron  alone 
saw  clearly  that  here  was  the  true  knot  of  the  ques 
tion,  though,  as  his  object  was  mainly  mischief,  he 
was  not  careful  to  loosen  it.  The  sincerity  of  By 
ron's  admiration  of  Pope  has  been,  it  seems  to  me, 
too  hastily  doubted.  What  he  admired  in  him  was 
that  patience  in  careful  finish  which  he  felt  to  be 
wanting  in  himself  and  in  most  of  his  contempora 
ries.  Pope's  assailants  went  so  far  as  to  make 
a  defect  of  what,  rightly  considered,  was  a  distin 
guished  merit,  though  the  amount  of  it  was  exag 
gerated.  The  weak  point  in  the  case  was  that  his 
nicety  concerned  itself  wholly  about  the  phrase, 


56  POPE 

leaving  the  thought  to  be  as  faulty  as  it  would,  and 
that  it  seldom  extended  beyond  the  couplet,  often 
not  beyond  a  single  verse.  His  serious  poetry, 
therefore,  at  its  best,  is  a  succession  of  loosely 
strung  epigrams,  and  no  poet  more  often  than  he 
makes  the  second  line  of  the  couplet  a  mere  train- 
bearer  to  the  first.  His  more  ambitious  works  may 
be  defined  as  careless  thinking  carefully  versified. 
Lessing  was  one  of  the  first  to  see  this,  and  accord 
ingly  he  tells  us  that  "  his  great,  I  will  not  say 
greatest,  merit  lay  in  what  we  call  the  mechanic  of 
poetry."  l  Lessing,  with  his  usual  insight,  paren 
thetically  qualifies  his  statement ;  for  where  Pope, 
as  in  the  "  Rape  of  the  Lock,"  found  a  subject  ex 
actly  level  with  his  genius,  he  was  able  to  make 
what,  taken  for  all  in  all,  is  the  most  perfect  poem 
in  the  language. 

It  will  hardly  be  questioned  that  the  man  who 
writes  what  is  still  piquant  and  rememberable,  a 
century  and  a  quarter  after  his  death,  was  a  man  of 
genius.  But  there  are  two  modes  of  uttering  such 
things  as  cleave  to  the  memory  of  mankind.  They 
may  be  said  or  sung.  I  do  not  think  that  Pope's 
verse  anywhere  sings,  but  it  should  seem  that  the 
abiding  presence  of  fancy  in  his  best  work  forbids 
his  exclusiDn  from  the  rank  of  poet.  The  atmos 
phere  in  wHiich  he  habitually  dwelt  was  an  essen 
tially  prosaic  one,  the  language  habitual  to  him  was 
that  of  conversation  and  society,  so  that  he  lacked 
the  help  of  that  fresher  dialect  which  seems  like 

1  Briefe  die  neueste  Litteratur  betrejfend,  1759,  ii.  Brief.  See 
also  his  more  elaborate  criticism  of  the  Essay  on  Man  (Pope  ein 
Metaphysiker),  1755. 


POPE  67 

inspiration  in  the  elder  poets.  His  range  of  asso 
ciations  was  of  that  narrow  kind  which  is  always 
vulgar,  whether  it  be  found  in  the  village  or  the 
court.  Certainly  he  has  not  the  force  and  majesty 
of  Dryden  in  his  better  nioods,  but  he  has  a  grace, 
a  finesse,  an  art  of  being  pungent,  a  sensitiveness 
to  impressions,  that  would  incline  us  to  rank  him 
with  Voltaire  (whom  in  many  ways  he  so  much 
resembles),  as  an  author  with  whom  the  gift  of 
writing  was  primary,  and  that  of  verse  secondary. 
No  other  poet  that  I  remember  ever  wrote  prose 
which  is  so  purely  prose  as  his  ;  and  yet,  in  any  im 
partial  criticism,  the  "  Rape  of  thfe  Lock  "  sets  him 
even  as  a  poet  far  above  many  men  more  largely 
endowed  with  poetic  feeling  and  insight  than  he. 

A  great  deal  must  be  allowed  to  Pope  for  the 
age  in  which  he  lived,  and  not  a  little,  I  think,  for 
the  influence  of  Swift.  In  his  own  province  he  still 
stands  unapproachably  alone.  If  to  be  the  great 
est  satirist  of  individual  men,  rather  than  of  human 
nature,  if  to  be  the  highest  expression  which  the 
life  of  the  court  and  the  ball-room  has  ever  found 
in  verse,  if  to  have  added  more  phrases  to  our  lan 
guage  than  any  other  but  Shakespeare,  if  to  have 
charmed  four  generations  make  a  man  a  great  poet, 
—  then  he  is  one.  He  was  the  chief  founder  of  an 
artificial  style  of  writing,  which  in  his  hands  was 
living  and  powerful,  because  he  used  it  to  express 
artificial  modes  of  thinking  and  an  artificial  state 
of  society.  Measured  by  any  high  standard  of  im 
agination,  he  will  be  found  wanting ;  tried  by  any 
test  of  wit,  he  is  unrivalled. 


MILTON  i 

[1872] 

IF  the  biographies  of  literary  men  are  to  assume 
the  bulk  which  Mr.  Masson  is  giving  to  that  of 
Milton,  their  authors  should  send  a  phial  of  elixir 
vitce  with  the  first  volume,  that  a  purchaser  might 
have  some  valid  assurance  of  surviving  to  see  the 
last.  Mr.  Masson  has  already  occupied  thirteen 
hundred  and  seventy-eight  pages  in  getting  Milton 
to  his  thirty-fifth  year,  and  an  interval  of  eleven 
years  stretches  between  the  dates  of  the  first  and 
second  instalments  of  his  published  labors.  As 
Milton's  literary  life  properly  begins  at  twenty-one, 
with  the  "  Ode  on  the  Nativity,"  and  as  by  far  the 
more  important  part  of  it  lies  between  the  year  at 
which  we  are  arrived  and  his  death  at  the  age  of 
sixty-six,  we  might  seem  to  have  the  terms  given  us 
by  which  to  make  a  rough  reckoning  of  how  soon 

1  The  Life  of  John  Milton :  narrated  in  Connection  with  the 
Political,  Ecclesiastical,  and  Literary  History  of  his  Time.  By 
David  Masson,  M.  A.,  LL.  D.,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  English 
Literature  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh.  Vols.  i.,  ii.  1638- 
1643.  London  and  New  York :  Macmillan  &  Co.  1871.  8vo. 
pp.  xii,  608. 

The  Poetical  Works  of  John  Milton,  edited,  with  Introduction, 
Notes,  and  an  Essay  on  Milton's  English,  by  David  Masson,  M.  A., 
LL.  D.,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  English  Literature  in  the  Uni» 
yersity  of  Edinburgh.  3  vols.  8vo.  Macmillan  &  Co.  1874. 


MILTON  59 

we  are  likely  to  see  land.  But  when  we  recollect 
the  baffling  character  of  the  winds  and  currents  we 
have  already  encountered,  and  the  eddies  that  may 
at  any  time  slip  us  back  to  the  reformation  in  Scot 
land  or  the  settlement  of  New  England  ;  when  we 
consider,  moreover,  that  Milton's  life  overlapped 
the  grand  siecle  of  French  literature,  with  its  irre 
sistible  temptations  to  digression  and  homily  for 
a  man  of  Mr.  Masson's  temperament,  we  may  be 
pardoned  if  a  sigh  of  doubt  and  discouragement 
escape  us.  We  envy  the  secular  leisures  of  Methu 
selah,  and  are  thankful  that  his  biography  at  least 
(if  written  in  the  same  longeval  proportion)  is  ir 
recoverably  lost  to  us.  What  a  subject  would  that 
have  been  for  a  person  of  Mr.  Masson's  spacious 
predilections !  Even  if  he  himself  can  count  on 
patriarchal  prorogations  of  existence,  let  him  hang 
a  print  of  the  Countess  of  Desmond  in  his  study  to 
remind  him  of  the  ambushes  which  Fate  lays  for 
the  toughest  of  us.  For  myself,  I  have  not  dared 
to  climb  a  cherry-tree  since  I  began  to  read  his 
work.  Even  with  the  promise  of  a  speedy  third 
volume  before  me,  I  feel  by  no  means  sure  of  living 
to  see  Mary  Powell  back  in  her  husband's  house ; 
for  it  is  just  at  this  crisis  that  Mr.  Masson,  with  the 
diabolical  art  of  a  practised  serial  writer,  leaves  us 
while  he  goes  into  an  exhaustive  account  of  the 
Westminster  Assembly  and  the  political  and  reli 
gious  notions  of  the  Massachusetts  Puritans.  One 
could  not  help  thinking,  after  having  got  Milton 
fairly  through  college,  that  he  was  never  more  mis 
taken  in  his  life  than  when  he  wrote, 


60  MILTON 

"  How  soon  hath  Time,  that  subtle  thief  of  youth, 
Stolen  on  his  wing  my  three-and-twentieth  year !  " 

Or   is   it   Mr.  Masson   who   has   scotched  Time's 
wheels  ? 

It  is  plain  from  the  Preface  to  the  second  volume 
that  Mr.  Masson  himself  has  an  uneasy  conscious 
ness  that  something  is  wrong,  and  that  Milton 
ought  somehow  to  be  more  than  a  mere  incident  of 
his  own  biography.  He  tells  us  that,  "  whatever 
may  be  thought  by  a  hasty  person  looking  in  on  the 
subject  from  the  outside,  no  one  can  study  the  life 
of  Milton  as  it  ought  to  be  studied  without  being 
obliged  to  study  extensively  and  intimately  the 
contemporary  history  of  England,  and  even  inci 
dentally  of  Scotland  and  Ireland  too.  .  .  .  Thus 
on  the  very  compulsion,  or  at  least  the  suasion,  of 
the  biography,  a  history  grew  on  my  hands.  It  was 
not  in  human  nature  to  confine  the  historical  in 
quiries,  once  they  were  in  progress,  within  the  pre 
cise  limits  of  their  demonstrable  bearing  on  the 
biography,  even  had  it  been  possible  to  determine 
these  limits  beforehand ;  and  so  the  history  as 
sumed  a  coordinate  importance  with  me,  was  pur 
sued  often  for  its  own  sake,  and  became,  though 
always  with  a  sense  of  organic  relation  to  the  bio 
graphy,  continuous  in  itself."  If  a  "  hasty  person  " 
be  one  who  thinks  eleven  years  rather  long  to  have 
his  button  held  by  a  biographer  ere  he  begin  his 
next  sentence,  I  take  to  myself  the  sting  of  Mr. 
Masson's  covert  sarcasm.  I  confess  with  shame  a 
pusillanimity  that  is  apt  to  flag  if  a  "to  be  contin 
ued  "  do  not  redeem  its  promise  before  the  lapse  of 


MILTON  61 

a  quinquennium.  I  could  scarce  await  the  "  Auto 
crat  "  himself  so  long.  The  heroic  age  of  literature 
is  past,  and  even  a  duodecimo  may  often  prove  too 
heavy  (oloi  vvv  fiporol)  for  the  descendants  of  men 
to  whom  the  folio  was  a  pastime.  But  what  does 
Mr.  Masson  mean  by  "  continuous  "  ?  To  me  it 
seems  rather  as  if  his  somewhat  rambling  history 
of  the  seventeenth  century  were  interrupted  now 
and  then  by  an  unexpected  apparition  of  Milton, 
who,  like  Paul  Pry,  just  pops  in  and  hopes  he  does 
not  intrude,  to  tell  us  what  he  has  been  doing  in 
the  mean  while.  The  reader,  immersed  in  Scottish 
politics  or  the  schemes  of  Archbishop  Laud,  is  a  lit 
tle  puzzled  at  first,  but  reconciles  himself  on  being 
reminded  that  this  fair-haired  young  man  is  the 
protagonist  of  the  drama.  Pars  minima  est  ipsa 
puella  sui. 

If  Goethe  was  right  in  saying  that  every  man 
was  a  citizen  of  his  age  as  well  as  of  his  country, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in  order  to  understand 
the  motives  and  conduct  of  the  man  we  must  first 
make  ourselves  intimate  with  the  time  in  which  he 
lived.  We  have  therefore  no  fault  to  find  with  the 
thoroughness  of  Mr.  Masson's  "  historical  inquiries." 
The  more  thorough  the  better,  so  far  as  they  were 
essential  to  the  satisfactory  performance  of  his  task. 
But  it  is  only  such  contemporary  events,  opinions, 
or  persons  as  were  really  operative  on  the  charac 
ter  of  the  man  we  are  studying  that  are  of  conse 
quence,  and  we  are  to  familiarize  ourselves  with 
them,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  explaining  as  of 
understanding  him.  The  biographer,  especially  of 


62  MILTON 

a  literary  man,  need  only  mark  the  main  currents 
of  tendency,  without  being  officious  to  trace  out  to 
its  marshy  source  every  runlet  that  has  cast  in  its 
tiny  pitcherful  with  the  rest.  Much  less  should  he 
attempt  an  analysis  of  the  stream  and  to  classify 
every  component  by  itself,  as  if  each  were  ever 
effectual  singly  and  not  in  combination.  Human 
motives  cannot  be  thus  chemically  cross-examined, 
nor  do  we  arrive  at  any  true  knowledge  of  char 
acter  by  such  minute  subdivision  of  its  ingredients. 
Nothing  is  so  essential  to  a  biographer  as  an  eye 
that  can  distinguish  at  a  glance  between  real  events 
that  are  the  levers  of  thought  and  action,  and  what 
Donne  calls  "  unconcerning  things,  matters  of  fact," 
—  between  substantial  personages,  whose  contact 
or  even  neighborhood  is  influential,  and  the  super 
numeraries  that  serve  first  to  fill  up  a  stage  and  af 
terwards  the  interstices  of  a  biographical  dictionary. 

"  Time  hath  a  wallet  at  his  back 

Wherein  he  puts  alms  for  Oblivion." 

Let  the  biographer  keep  his  fingers  off  that  sa 
cred  and  merciful  deposit,  and  not  renew  for  us  the 
bores  of  a  former  generation  as  if  we  had  not 
enough  of  our  own.  But  if  he  cannot  forbear  that 
unwise  inquisitiveness,  we  may  fairly  complain  when 
he  insists  on  taking  us  along  with  him  in  the  pro 
cesses  of  his  investigation,  instead  of  giving  us  the 
sifted  results  in  their  bearing  on  the  life  and  char 
acter  of  his  subject,  whether  for  help  or  hindrance. 
We  are  blinded  with  the  dust  of  old  papers  ran 
sacked  by  Mr.  Masson  to  find  out  that  they  have  no 
relation  whatever  to  his  hero.  He  had  been  wise 


MILTON  63 

if  he  had  kept  constantly  in  view  what  Milton  him 
self  says  of  those  who  gathered  up  personal  tradi 
tions  concerning  the  Apostles  :  "  With  less  fer 
vency  was  studied  what  Saint  Paul  or  Saint  John 
had  written  than  was  listened  to  one  that  could  say 
*  Here  he  taught,  here  he  stood,  this  was  his  stature, 
and  thus  he  went  habited ;  and  O,  happy  this  house 
that  harbored  him,  and  that  cold  stone  whereon  he 
rested,  this  village  where  he  wrought  such  a  miracle.' 
.  .  .  Thus  while  all  their  thoughts  were  poured 
out  upon  circumstances  and  the  gazing  after  such 
men  as  had  sat  at  table  with  the  Apostles,  ...  by 
this  means  they  lost  their  time  and  truanted  on  the 
fundamental  grounds  of  saving  knowledge,  as  was 
seen  shortly  in  their  writings."  Mr.  Masson  has  so 
poured  out  his  mind  upon  circumstances,  that  his 
work  reminds  us  of  Allston's  picture  of  Elijah  in 
the  Wilderness,  where  a  good  deal  of  research  at 
last  enables  us  to  guess  at  the  prophet  absconded 
like  a  conundrum  in  the  landscape  where  the  very 
ravens  could  scarce  have  found  him  out,  except  by 
divine  commission.  The  figure  of  Milton  becomes 
but  a  speck  on  the  enormous  canvas  crowded  with 
the  scenery  through  which  he  may  by  any  possibility 
be  conjectured  to  have  passed.  I  will  cite  a  single 
example  of  the  desperate  straits  to  which  Mr.  Mas- 
son  is  reduced  in  order  to  hitch  Milton  on  to  his  own 
biography.  He  devotes  the  first  chapter  of  his  Sec 
ond  Book  to  the  meeting  of  the  Long  Parliament. 
"  Already,"  he  tells  us,  "  in  the  earlier  part  of  the 
day,  the  Commons  had  gone  through  the  ceremony 
of  hearing  the  writ  for  the  Parliament  read,  and 


64  MILTON 

the  names  of  the  members  that  had  been  returned 
called  over  by  Thomas  Wyllys,  Esq.,  the  Clerk  of 
the  Crown  in  Chancery.  His  deputy,  Agar,  Mil 
ton  s  brother-in-law,  may  have  been  in  attendance 
on  such  an  occasion.  During  the  preceding  month 
or  two,  at  all  events,  Agar  and  his  subordinates  in 
the  Crown  Office  had  been  unusually  busy  with 
the  issue  of  the  writs  and  with  the  other  work  con 
nected  with  the  opening  of  Parliament."  (Vol.  ii. 
p.  150.)  Mr.  Masson's  resolute  "  at  all  events  "  is 
very  amusing.  Meanwhile 

"  The  hungry  sheep  look  up  and  are  not  fed." 

Augustine  Thierry  has  a  great  deal  to  answer 
for,  if  to  him  we  owe  the  modern  fashion  of  writing 
history  picturesquely.  At  least  his  method  leads 
to  most  unhappy  results  when  essayed  by  men  to 
whom  nature  has  denied  a  sense  of  what  the  pic 
turesque  really  is.  The  historical  picturesque  does 
not  consist  in  truth  of  costume  and  similar  accessa 
ries,  but  in  the  grouping,  attitude,  and  expression 
of  the  figures,  caught  when  they  are  unconscious 
that  the  artist  is  sketching  them.  The  moment 
they  are  posed  for  a  composition,  unless  by  a  man 
of  genius,  the  life  has  gone  out  of  them.  In  the 
hands  of  an  inferior  artist,  who  fancies  that  im 
agination  is  something  to  be  squeezed  out  of  color- 
tubes,  the  past  becomes  a  phantasmagoria  of  jack 
boots,  doublets,  and  flap-hats,  the  mere  property- 
room  of  a  deserted  theatre,  as  if  the  light  had  been 
scenical  and  illusory,  the  world  an  unreal  thing  that 
vanished  with  the  foot-lights.  It  is  the  power  of 
catching  the  actors  in  great  events  at  unawares  that 


MILTON  65 

makes  the  glimpses  given  us  by  contemporaries  so 
vivid  and  precious.  And  St.  Simon,  one  of  the 
great  masters  of  the  picturesque,  lets  us  into  the 
secret  of  his  art  when  he  tells  us  how,  in  that  won 
derful  scene  of  the  death  of  Monseigneur,  he  saw 
"  du  premier  coup  d'ceil  vivement  porte,  tout  ce 
qui  leur  echappoit  et  tout  ce  qui  les  accableroit." 
It  is  the  gift  of  producing  this  reality  that  almost 
makes  us  blush,  as  if  we  had  been  caught  peeping 
through  a  keyhole,  and  had  surprised  secrets  to  which 
we  had  no  right,  —  it  is  this  only  that  can  justify 
the  pictorial  method  of  narration.  Mr.  Carlyle  has 
this  power  of  contemporizing  himself  with  bygone 
times,  he  cheats  us  to 

"  Play  with  our  fancies  and  believe  we  see  " ; 

but  we  find  the  tableaux  vivants  of  the  apprentices 
who  "  deal  in  his  command  without  his  power," 
and  who  compel  us  to  work  very  hard  indeed  with 
our  fancies,  rather  wearisome.  The  effort  of  weaker 
arms  to  shoot  with  his  mighty  bow  has  filled  the 
air  of  recent  literature  with  more  than  enough  fruit 
less  twanging. 

Mr.  Masson's  style,  at  best  cumbrous,  becomes 
intolerably  awkward  when  he  strives  to  make  up 
for  the  want  of  St.  Simon's  premier  coup  d'ceil  by 
impertinent  details  of  what  we  must  call  the  pseudo- 
dramatic  kind.  For  example,  does  Hall  profess  to 
have  traced  Milton  from  the  University  to  a  "  sub 
urb  sink"  of  London?  Mr.  Masson  fancies  he 
hears  Milton  saying  to  himself,  "  A  suburb  sink ! 
has  Hall  or  his  son  taken  the  trouble  to  walk  all  the 


66  MILTON 

way  down  to  Aldersgate  here,  to  peep  up  the  entry 
where  I  live,  and  so  have  an  exact  notion  of  my 
whereabouts  ?  There  has  been  plague  in  the  neigh 
borhood  certainly ;  and  I  hope  Jane  Yates  had  my 
doorstep  tidy  for  the  visit."  Does  Milton,  answer 
ing  Hall's  innuendo  that  he  was  courting  the  graces 
of  a  rich  widow,  tell  us  that  he  would  rather 
"  choose  a  virgin  of  mean  fortunes  honestly  bred  "  ? 
Mr.  Masson  forthwith  breaks  forth  in  a  paroxysm 
of  what  we  suppose  to  be  picturesqueness  in  this 
wise  :  "  What  have  we  here  ?  Surely  nothing  less, 
if  we  choose  so  to  construe  it,  than  a  marriage  ad 
vertisement  !  Ho,  all  ye  virgins  of  England  (wid 
ows  need  not  apply),  here  is  an  opportunity  such 
as  seldom  occurs  :  a  bachelor,  unattached  ;  age, 
thirty-three  years  and  three  or  four  months  ;  height 
[Milton,  by  the  way,  would  have  said  hightfi\  mid 
dle  or  a  little  less ;  personal  appearance  unusually 
handsome,  with  fair  complexion  and  light  auburn 
hair ;  circumstances  independent ;  tastes  intellec 
tual  and  decidedly  musical;  principles  Root-and- 
Branch  !  Was  there  already  any  young  maiden  in 
whose  bosom,  had  such  an  advertisement  come  in 
her  way,  it  would  have  raised  a  conscious  flutter? 
If  so,  did  she  live  near  Oxford?  "  If  there  is  any 
thing  worse  than  an  unimaginative  man  trying  to 
write  imaginatively,  it  is  a  heavy  man  when  he  fan 
cies  he  is  being  facetious.  He  tramples  out  the 
last  spark  of  cheerfulness  with  the  broad  damp  foot 
of  a  hippopotamus. 

I  am  no  advocate  of  what  is  called  the  dignity 
of  history,  when  it  means,  as  it  too  often  does,  that 


MILTON  67 

dulness  has  a  right  of  sanctuary  in  gravity.  Too 
well  do  I  recall  the  sorrows  of  my  youth,  when  I 
was  shipped  in  search  of  knowledge  on  the  long 
Johnsonian  swell  of  the  last  century,  favorable  to 
anything  but  the  calm  digestion  of  historic  truth. 
I  had  even  then  an  uneasy  suspicion,  which  has 
ripened  into  certainty,  that  thoughts  were  never 
draped  in  long  skirts  like  babies,  if  they  were 
strong  enough  to  go  alone.  But  surely  there  should 
be  such  a  thing  as  good  taste,  above  all  a  sense  of 
self-respect,  in  the  historian  himself,  that  should 
not  allow  him  to  play  any  tricks  with  the  dignity 
of  his  subject.  A  halo  of  sacredness  has  hitherto 
invested  the  figure  of  Milton,  and  our  image  of 
him  has  dwelt  securely  in  ideal  remoteness  from 
the  vulgarities  of  life.  No  diaries,  no  private  let 
ters,  remain  to  give  the  idle  curiosity  of  after-times 
the  right  to  force  itself  on  the  hallowed  seclusion 
of  his  reserve.  That  a  man  whose  familiar  epistles 
were  written  in  the  language  of  Cicero,  whose 
sense  of  personal  dignity  was  so  great  that,  when 
called  on  in  self-defence  to  speak  of  himself,  he 
always  does  it  with  an  epical  stateliness  of  phrase, 
and  whose  self-respect  even  in  youth  was  so  pro 
found  that  it  resembles  the  reverence  paid  by  other 
men  to  a  far-off  and  idealized  character,  —  that  he 
should  be  treated  in  this  off-hand  familiar  fashion 
by  his  biographer  seems  to  us  a  kind  of  desecration, 
a  violation  of  good  manners  no  less  than  of  the 
laws  of  biographic  art.  Milton  is  the  last  man  in 
the  world  to  be  slapped  on  the  back  with  impunity. 
Better  the  surly  injustice  of  Johnson  than  such 


68  MILTON 

presumptuous  friendship  as  this.  Let  the  seven 
teenth  century,  at  least,  be  kept  sacred  from  the 
insupportable  foot  of  the  interviewer  I 

But  Mr.  Masson,  in  his  desire  to  be  (shall  I  say) 
idiomatic,  can  do  something  worse  than  what  has 
been  hitherto  quoted.  He  can  be  even  vulgar. 
Discussing  the  motives  of  Milton's  first  marriage, 
he  says,  "  Did  he  come  seeking  his  £500,  and  did 
Mrs.  Powell  heave  a  daughter  at  him  ? "  We 
have  heard  of  a  woman  throwing  herself  at  a 
man's  head,  and  the  image  is  a  somewhat  violent 
one ;  but  what  is  this  to  Mr.  Masson's  improve 
ment  on  it  ?  It  has  been  sometimes  affirmed  that 
the  fitness  of  an  image  may  be  tested  by  trying 
whether  a  picture  could  be  made  of  it  or  not.  Mr. 
Masson  has  certainly  offered  a  new  and  striking 
subject  to  the  historical  school  of  British  art.  A 
little  further  on,  speaking  of  Mary  Powell,  he  says, 
"  We  have  no  portrait  of  her,  nor  any  account  of  her 
appearance ;  but  on  the  usual  rule  of  the  elective 
affinities  of  opposites,  Milton  being  fair,  we  will 
vote  her  to  have  been  dark-haired."  I  need  say 
nothing  of  the  good  taste  of  this  sentence,  but  its 
absurdity  is  heightened  by  the  fact  that  Mr.  Masson 
himself  had  left  us  in  doubt  whether  the  match 
was  one  of  convenience  or  inclination.  I  know 
not  how  it  may  be  with  other  readers,  but  for  my 
self  I  feel  inclined  to  resent  this  hail-fellow-well- 
met  manner  with  its  jaunty  "  we  will  vote."  In 
some  cases,  Mr.  Masson's  indecorums  in  respect  of 
style  may  possibly  be  accounted  for  as  attempts  at 
humor  by  one  who  has  an  imperfect  notion  of  its 


MILTON  69 

ingredients.  In  such  experiments,  to  judge  by  the 
effect,  the  pensive  element  of  the  compound  enters 
in  too  large  an  excess  over  the  hilarious.  Whether 
I  have  hit  upon  the  true  explanation,  or  whether 
the  cause  lie  not  rather  in  a  besetting  velleity  of 
the  picturesque  and  vivid,  I  shall  leave  the  reader 
to  judge  by  an  example  or  two.  In  the  manuscript 
copy  of  Milton's  sonnet  in  which  he  claims  for  his 
own  house  the  immunity  which  the  memory  of  Pin 
dar  and  Euripides  secured  for  other  walls,  the  title 
had  originally  been,  "  On  his  Door  when  the  City 
expected  an  Assault."  Milton  has  drawn  a  line 
through  this  and  substituted  "  When  the  Assault 
was  intended  to  the  City."  Mr.  Masson  fancies 
"  a  mood  of  jest  or  semi-jest  in  the  whole  affair  "  ; 
but  we  think  rather  that  Milton's  quiet  assumption 
of  equality  with  two  such  famous  poets  was  as  se 
riously  characteristic  as  Dante's  ranking  himself 
sesto  tra  cotanto  senno.  Mr.  Masson  takes  advan 
tage  of  the  obliterated  title  to  imagine  one  of  Prince 
Rupert's  troopers  entering  the  poet's  study  and 
finding  some  of  his  "  Anti-Episcopal  pamphlets  that 
had  been  left  lying  about  inadvertently.  '  Oho ! ' 
the  Cavalier  Captain  might  then  have  said, '  Pindar 
and  Euripides  are  all  very  well,  by  G — !  I  've 
been  at  college  myself  ;  and  when  I  meet  a  gen 
tleman  and  scholar,  I  hope  I  know  how  to  treat 
him ;  but  neither  Pindar  nor  Euripides  ever  wrote 
pamphlets  against  the  Church  of  England,  by 
G — !  It  won't  do,  Mr.  Milton ! '  "  This,  it  may  be 
supposed,  is  Mr.  Masson's  way  of  being  funny  and 
dramatic  at  the  same  time.  Good  taste  is  shocked 


70  MILTON 

with  this  barbarous  dissonance.  Could  not  the 
Muse  defend  her  son?  Again,  when  Charles  L, 
at  Edinburgh,  in  the  autumn  and  winter  of  1641, 
fills  the  vacant  English  sees,  we  are  told,  "  It  was 
more  than  an  insult ;  it  was  a  sarcasm  !  It  was  as 
if  the  King,  while  giving  Alexander  Henderson  his 
hand  to  kiss,  had  winked  his  royal  eye  over  that 
reverend  Presbyter's  back !  "  Now  one  can  con 
ceive  Charles  II.  winking  when  he  took  the  Solemn 
League  and  Covenant,  but  never  his  father  under 
any  circumstances.  He  may  have  been,  and  I  be 
lieve  he  was,  a  bad  king,  but  surely  we  may  take 
Marvell's  word  for  it,  that 

"  He  nothing  common  did  or  mean," 

upon  any  of  the  "  memorable  scenes  "  of  his  life. 
The  image  is  therefore  out  of  all  imaginative  keep 
ing,  and  vulgarizes  the  chief  personage  in  a  grand 
historical  tragedy,  who,  if  not  a  great,  was  at  least 
a  decorous  actor.  But  Mr.  Masson  can  do  worse 
than  this.  Speaking  of  a  Mrs.  Katherine  Chidley, 
who  wrote  in  defence  of  the  Independents  against 
Thomas  Edwards,  he  says,  "  People  wondered  who 
this  she-Brownist,  Katherine  Chidley,  was,  and  did 
not  quite  lose  their  interest  in  her  when  they  found 
that  she  was  an  oldish  woman,  and  a  member  of 
some  hole-and-corner  congregation  in  London.  In 
deed,  she  put  her  nails  into  Mr.  Edwards  with 
some  effect"  Why  did  he  not  say  at  once,  after 
the  good  old  fashion,  that  she  "  set  her  ten  com 
mandments  in  his  face  "  ?  In  another  place  he 
speaks  of  "  Satan  standing  with  his  staff  around 


MILTON  71 

him."  Mr.  Masson's  style,  a  little  Robertsonian 
at  best,  naturally  grows  worse  when  forced  to  con 
descend  to  every-day  matters.  He  can  no  more 
dismount  and  walk  than  the  man  in  armor  on  a 
Lord  Mayor's  day.  "  It  [Aldersgate  Street] 
stretches  away  northwards  a  full  fourth  of  a  mile 
as  one  continuous  thoroughfare,  until,  crossed  by 
Long  Lane  and  the  Barbican,  it  parts  with  the 
name  of  Aldersgate  Street,  and,  under  the  new 
names  of  Goswell  Street  and  Goswell  Road,  com 
pletes  its  tendency  towards  the  suburbs  and  fields 
about  Islington."  What  a  noble  work  might  not 
the  Directory  be  if  composed  on  this  scale !  The 
imagination  even  of  an  alderman  might  well  be 
lost  in  that  full  quarter  of  a  mile  of  continuous 
thoroughfare.  Mr.  Masson  is  very  great  in  these 
passages  of  civic  grandeur  ;  but  he  is  more  surpris 
ing,  on  the  whole,  where  he  has  an  image  to  deal 
with.  Speaking  of  Milton's  "  two-handed  engine  " 
in  Lycidas,  he  says :  "  May  not  Milton,  whatever 
else  he  meant,  have  meant  a  coming  English  Par 
liament  with  its  two  Houses  ?  Whatever  he  meant, 
his  prophecy  had  come  true.  As  he  sat  among 
his  books  in  Aldersgate  Street,  the  two-handed  en 
gine  at  the  door  of  the  English  Church  was  on  the 
swing.  Once,  twice,  thrice,  it  had  swept  its  arcs 
to  gather  energy  ;  now  it  was  on  the  backmost 
poise,  and  the  blow  was  to  descend."  One  cannot 
help  wishing  that  Mr.  Masson  would  try  his  hand 
on  the  tenth  horn  of  the  beast  in  Revelation,  or  on 
the  time  and  half  a  time  of  Daniel.  There  is  some 
thing  so  consoling  to  a  prophet  in  being  told  that, 


72  MILTON 

no  matter  what  he  meant,  his  prophecy  had  come 
true,  and  that  he  might  mean  "  whatever  else  "  he 
pleased,  so  long  as  he  may  have  meant  what  we 
choose  to  think  he  did,  reasoning  backward  from 
the  assumed  fulfilment !  But  perhaps  there  may 
be  detected  in  Mr.  Masson's  "  swept  its  arcs  "  a 
little  of  that  prophetic  hedging-in  vagueness  to 
which  he  allows  so  generous  a  latitude.  How  if 
the  "  two-handed  engine,"  after  all,  were  a  broom 
(or  besom,  to  be  more  dignified), 

"  Sweeping  —  vehemently  sweeping, 
No  pause  admitted,  no  design  avowed," 

like  that  wielded  by  the  awful  shape  which  Dion 
the  Syracusan  saw  ?  I  make  the  suggestion  mod 
estly,  though  somewhat  encouraged  by  Mr.  Mas- 
son's  system  of  exegesis,  which  reminds  one  of  the 
casuists'  doctrine  of  probables,  in  virtue  of  which 
a  man  may  be  probabiliter  obligatus  and  prdbabili- 
ter  deobligatus  at  the  same  time.  But  perhaps 
the  most  remarkable  instance  of  Mr.  Masson's  fig 
ures  of  speech  is  where  we  are  told  that  the  king 
might  have  established  a  bona  fide  government 
"  by  giving  public  ascendency  to  the  popular  or 
Parliamentary  element  in  his  Council,  and  indu 
cing  the  old  leaven  in  it  either  to  accept  the  new  pol 
icy,  or  to  withdraw  and  become  inactive"  There 
is  something  consoling  in  the  thought  that  yeast 
should  be  accessible  to  moral  suasion.  It  is  really 
too  bad  that  bread  should  ever  be  heavy  for  want 
of  such  an  appeal  to  its  moral  sense  as  should 
"  induce  it  to  accept  the  new  policy."  Of  Mr. 
Masson's  unhappy  infection  with  the  vivid  style 


MILTON  73 

an  instance  or  two  shall  be  given  in  justification  of 
what  has  been  alleged  against  him  in  that  partic 
ular.  He  says  of  London  that  "  he  was  committed 
to  the  Tower,  where  for  more  than  two  months  he 
lay,  with  as  near  a  prospect  as  ever  prisoner  had 
of  a  chop  with  the  executioner's  axe  on  a  scaffold 
on  Tower  Hill."  I  may  be  over-fastidious,  but  the 
word  "  chop  "  offends  my  ears  with  its  coarseness, 
or  if  that  be  too  strong,  has  certainly  the  unplea 
sant  effect  of  an  emphasis  unduly  placed.  Old 
Auchinleck's  saying  of  Cromwell,  that  "he  gart 
kings  ken  they  had  a  lith  in  their  necks,"  is  a  good 
example  of  really  vivid  phrase,  suggesting  the  axe 
and  the  block,  and  giving  one  of  those  dreadful 
hints  to  the  imagination  which  are  more  powerful 
than  any  amount  of  detail,  and  whose  skilful  use  is 
the  only  magic  employed  by  the  masters  of  truly 
picturesque  writing.  The  sentence  just  quoted  will 
serve  also  as  an  example  of  that  tendency  to  sur 
plusage  which  adds  to  the  bulk  of  Mr.  Masson's  sen 
tences  at  the  cost  of  their  effectiveness.  If  he  had 
said  simply  "  chop  on  Tower  Hill  "  (if  chop  there 
must  be),  it  had  been  quite  enough,  for  we  all  know 
that  the  executioner's  axe  and  the  scaffold  are  im 
plied  in  it.  Once  more,  and  I  have  done  with  the 
least  agreeable  part  of  my  business.  Mr.  Masson, 
after  telling  over  again  the  story  of  Straff ord  with 
needless  length  of  detail,  ends  thus  :  "  On  Wednes 
day,  the  12th  of  May,  that  proud  curly  head, 
the  casket  of  that  brain  of  power,  rolled  on  the 
scaffold  of  Tower  Hill."  Why  curly  ?  Surely  it 
is  here  a  ludicrous  impertinence.  This  careful 


74  MILTON 

thrusting  forward  of  outward  and  unmeaning  par 
ticulars,  in  the  hope  of  giving  that  reality  to  a  pic 
ture  which  genius  only  has  the  art  to  do,  is  becom 
ing  a  weariness  in  modern  descriptive  writing.  It 
reminds  one  of  the  Mrs.  Jarley  expedient  of  dress 
ing  the  waxen  effigies  of  murderers  in  the  very 
clothes  they  wore  when  they  did  the  deed,  or  with 
the  real  halter  round  their  necks  wherewith  they 
expiated  it.  It  is  probably  very  effective  with  the 
torpid  sensibilities  of  the  class  who  look  upon  wax 
figures  as  works  of  art.  f  True  imaginative  power 
works  with  other  material.  Lady  Macbeth  striving 
to  wash  away  from  her  hands  the  damned  spot  that 
is  all  the  more  there  to  the  mind  of  the  spectator 
because  it  is  not  there  at  all,  is  a  type  of  the  meth 
ods  it  employs  and  the  intensity  of  their  action. 

Having  discharged  my  duty  in  regard  to  Mr. 
Masson's  faults  of  manner,  which  I  should  not  have 
dwelt  on  so  long  had  they  not  greatly  marred  a 
real  enjoyment  in  the  reading,  and  were  they  not 
the  ear-mark  of  a  school  which  has  become  unhap 
pily  numerous,  I  turn  to  a  consideration  of  his  work 
as  a  whole.  I  think  he  made  a  mistake  in  his  very 
plan,  or  else  was  guilty  of  a  misnomer  in  his  title. 
His  book  is  not  so  much  a  life  of  Milton  as  a  col 
lection  of  materials  out  of  which  a  careful  reader 
may  sift  the  main  facts  of  the  poet's  biography. 
His  passion  for  minute  detail  is  only  to  be  equalled 
by  his  diffuseness  on  points  mainly  if  not  altogether 
irrelevant.  He  gives  us  a  Survey  of  British  Lit 
erature,  occupying  one  hundred  and  twenty-eight 
pages  of  his  first  volume,  written  in  the  main  with 


MILTON  75 

good  judgment,  and  giving  the  average  critical 
opinion  upon  nearly  every  writer,  great  and  small, 
who  was  in  any  sense  a  contemporary  of  Milton. 
I  have  no  doubt  all  this  would  be  serviceable  and 
interesting  to  Mr.  Masson's  classes  in  Edinburgh 
University,  and  they  may  well  be  congratulated  on 
having  so  competent  a  teacher  ;  but  what  it  has  to 
do  with  Milton,  unless  in  the  case  of  such  authors 
as  may  be  shown  to  have  influenced  his  style  or 
turn  of  thought,  one  does  not  clearly  see.  Most 
readers  of  a  life  of  Milton  may  be  presumed  to 
have  some  knowledge  of  the  general  literary  history 
of  the  time,  or  at  any  rate  to  have  the  means  of 
acquiring  it,  and  Milton's  manner  (his  style  was 
his  own)  was  very  little  affected  by  any  of  the 
English  poets,  with  the  single  exception,  in  his  ear 
lier  poems,  of  George  Wither.  Mr.  Masson  also 
has  something  to  say  about  everybody,  from  Went- 
worth  to  the  obscurest  Brownist  fanatic  who  was 
so  much  as  heard  of  in  England  during  Milton's 
lifetime.  If  this  theory  of  a  biographer's  duty 
should  hold,  our  grandchildren  may  expect  to  see 
"  A  Life  of  Thackeray,  or  who  was  who  in  England, 
France,  and  Germany  during  the  first  Half  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century."  These  digressions  of  Mr. 
Masson's  from  what  should  have  been  his  main 
topic  (he  always  seems  somehow  to  be  "  complet 
ing  his  tendency  towards  the  suburbs  "  of  his  sub 
ject),  give  him  an  uneasy  feeling  that  he  must  get 
Milton  in  somehow  or  other  at  intervals,  if  it  were 
only  to  remind  the  reader  that  he  has  a  certain 
connection  with  the  book.  He  is  eager  even  to 


76  MILTON 

discuss  a  mere  hypothesis,  though  an  untenable 
one,  if  it  will  only  increase  the  number  of  pages  de 
voted  specially  to  Milton,  and  thus  lessen  the  ap 
parent  disproportion  between  the  historical  and 
the  biographical  matter.  Milton  tells  us  that  his 
morning  wont  had  been  "  to  read  good  authors,  or 
cause  them  to  be  read,  till  the  attention  be  weary, 
or  memory  have  his  full  fraught ;  then  with  useful 
and  generous  labors  preserving  the  body's  health 
and  hardiness,  to  render  lightsome,  clear,  and  not 
lumpish  obedience  to  the  mind,  to  the  cause  of  re 
ligion  and  our  country's  liberty  when  it  shall  re 
quire  firm  hearts  in  sound  bodies  to  stand  and 
cover  their  stations  rather  than  see  the  ruin  of  our 
Protestantism  and  the  enforcement  of  a  slavish 
life."  Mr.  Masson  snatches  at  the  hint :  "  This  is 
interesting,"  he  says ;  "  Milton,  it  seems,  has  for 
some  time  been  practising  drill !  The  City  Artil 
lery  Ground  was  near.  .  .  .  Did  Milton  among 
others  make  a  habit  of  going  there  of  mornings  ? 
Of  this  more  hereafter."  When  Mr.  Masson  re 
turns  to  the  subject  he  speaks  of  Milton's  "  all  but 
positive  statement  .  .  .  that  in  the  spring  of  1642, 
or  a  few  months  before  the  breaking  out  of  the 
Civil  War,  he  was  in  the  habit  of  spending  a  part 
of  each  day  in  military  exercise  somewhere  not  far 
from  his  house  in  Aldersgate  Street"  What  he 
puts  by  way  of  query  on  page  402  has  become 
downright  certainty  seventy-nine  pages  further  on. 
The  passage  from  Milton's  tract  makes  no  "  state 
ment  "  of  the  kind  it  pleases  Mr.  Masson  to  as 
sume.  It  is  merely  a  Miltonian  way  of  saying  that 


MILTON  77 

he  took  regular  exercise,  because  lie  believed  that 
moral  no  less  than  physical  courage  demanded  a 
sound  body.  And  what  proof  does  Mr.  Masson 
bring  to  confirm  his  theory  ?  Nothing  more  nor 
less  than  two  or  three  passages  in  "  Paradise  Lost," 
of  which  I  shall  quote  only  so  much  as  is  essential 
to  his  argument :  — 

"  And  now 

Advanced  in  view  they  stand,  a  horrid  front 
Of  dreadful  length  and  dazzling1  arms,  in  guise 
Of  warriors  old  with  ordered  spear  and  shield, 
Awaiting  what  command  their  mighty  chief 
Had  to  impose."  l 

Mr.  Masson  assures  us  that  "  there  are  touches  in 
this  description  (as,  for  example,  the  ordering  of 
arms  at  the  moment  of  halt,  and  without  word  of 
command)  too  exact  and  technical  to  have  occurred 
to  a  mere  civilian.  Again,  at  the  same  review  .  .  . 

'  He  now  prepared 

To  speak ;  whereat  their  doubled  ranks  they  bend 
From  wing  to  wing,  and  half  enclose  him  round 
With  all  his  peers  ;  attention  held  them  mute.' 2 

To  the  present  day  this  is  the  very  process,  or  one 
of  the  processes,  when  a  commander  wishes  to  ad 
dress  his  men.  They  wheel  inward  and  stand  at 
'  attention.'  "  But  his  main  argument  is  the  phrase 
"ported  spears,"  in  Book  Fourth,  on  which  he  has 
an  interesting  and  valuable  comment.  He  argues 
the  matter  through  a  dozen  pages  or  more,  seeking 
to  prove  that  Milton  must  have  had  some  practical 
experience  of  military  drill.  I  confess  a  very  grave 
doubt  whether  "  attention  "  and  "  ordered  "  in  the 
passages  cited  have  any  other  than  their  ordinary 
1  Book  I.  562-567.  2  Ibid.  615-618. 


78  MILTON 

meaning,  and  Milton  could  never  have  looked  on 
at  the  pike-exercise  without  learning  what  "  ported  " 
meant.  But,  be  this  as  it  may,  I  will  venture  to 
assert  that  there  was  not  a  boy  in  New  England, 
forty  years  ago,  who  did  not  know  more  of  the 
manual  than  is  implied  in  Milton's  use  of  these 
terms.  Mr.  Masson's  object  in  proving  Milton  to 
have  been  a  proficient  in  these  martial  exercises 
is  to  increase  our  wonder  at  his  not  entering  the 
army.  "  If  there  was  any  man  in  England  of 
whom  one  might  surely  have  expected  that  he 
would  be  in  arms  among  the  Parliamentarians," 
he  says,  "that  man  was  Milton."  Milton  may 
have  had  many  an  impulse  to  turn  soldier,  as  all 
men  must  in  such  times,  but  I  do  not  believe  that 
he  ever  seriously  intended  it.  Nor  is  it  any  matter 
of  reproach  that  he  did  not.  It  is  plain,  from  his 
works,  that  he  believed  himself  very  early  set  apart 
and  consecrated  for  tasks  of  a  very  different  kind, 
for  services  demanding  as  much  self-sacrifice  and 
of  more  enduring  result.  I  have  no  manner  of 
doubt  that  he,  like  Dante,  believed  himself  divinely 
inspired  with  what  he  had  to  utter,  and,  if  so,  why 
not  also  divinely  guided  in  what  he  should  do  or 
leave  undone?  Milton  wielded  in  the  cause  he 
loved  a  weapon  far  more  effective  than  a  sword. 

It  is  a  necessary  result  of  Mr.  Masson's  method, 
that  a  great  deal  of  space  is  devoted  to  what  might 
have  befallen  his  hero  and  what  he  might  have 
seen.  This  leaves  a  broad  margin  indeed  for  the 
insertion  of  purely  hypothetical  incidents.  Nay,  so 
desperately  addicted  is  he  to  what  he  deems  the 


MILTON  79 

vivid  style  of  writing,  that  he  even  goes  out  of  his 
way  to  imagine  what  might  have  happened  to  any 
body  living  at  the  same  time  with  Milton.  Having 
told  us  fairly  enough  how  Shakespeare,  on  his  last 
visit  to  London,  perhaps  saw  Milton  "  a  fair  child 
of  six  playing  at  his  father's  door,"  he  must  needs 
conjure  up  an  imaginary  supper  at  the  Mermaid. 
"  Ah !  what  an  evening  .  .  .  was  that ;  and  how 
Ben  and  Shakespeare  be-tongued  each  other,  while 
the  others  listened  and  wondered ;  and  how,  when 
the  company  dispersed,  the  sleeping  street  heard 
their  departing  footsteps,  and  the  stars  shone  down 
on  the  old  roofs."  Certainly,  if  we  may  believe 
the  old  song,  the  stars  "  had  nothing  else  to  do," 
though  their  chance  of  shining  in  the  middle  of  a 
London  November  may  perhaps  be  reckoned  very 
doubtful.  An  author  should  consider  how  largely 
the  art  of  writing  consists  in  knowing  what  to  leave 
in  the  inkstand. 

Mr.  Masson's  volumes  contain  a  great  deal  of 
very  valuable  matter,  whatever  one  may  think  of 
its  bearing  upon  the  life  of  Milton.  The  chapters 
devoted  to  Scottish  affairs  are  particularly  interest 
ing  to  a  student  of  the  Great  Rebellion,  its  causes 
and  concomitants.  His  analyses  of  the  two  armies, 
of  the  Parliament,  and  the  Westminster  Assembly, 
are  sensible  additions  to  our  knowledge.  A  too 
painful  thoroughness,  indeed,  is  the  criticism  we 
should  make  on  his  work  as  a  biography.  Even 
as  a  history,  the  reader  might  complain  that  it 
confuses  by  the  multiplicity  of  its  details,  while  it 
wearies  by  want  of  continuity.  Mr.  Masson  lacks 


80  MILTON 

the  skill  of  an  accomplished  story-teller.  A  fact 
is  to  him  a  fact,  never  mind  how  unessential,  and 
he  misses  the  breadth  of  truth  in  his  devotion  to 
accuracy.  The  very  order  of  his  title-page,  "  The 
Life  of  Milton,  narrated  in  Connection  with  the 
Political,  Ecclesiastical,  and  Literary  History  of  his 
Time,"  shows,  it  should  seem,  a  misconception  of 
the  true  nature  of  his  subject.  Milton's  chief  im 
portance,  it  might  be  fairly  said  his  only  impor 
tance,  is  literary.  His  place  is  fixed  as  the  most 
classical  of  our  poets. 

Neither  in  politics,  theology,  nor  social  ethics, 
did  Milton  leave  any  distinguishable  trace  on  the 
thought  of  his  time  or  in  the  history  of  opinion. 
In  all  these  lines  of  his  activity  circumstances 
forced  upon  him  the  position  of  a  controversialist 
whose  aims  and  results  are  by  the  necessity  of  the 
case  desultory  and  ephemeral.  Hooker  before  him 
and  Hobbes  after  him  had  a  far  firmer  grasp  of 
fundamental  principles  than  he.  His  studies  in 
these  matters  were  perfunctory  and  occasional,  and 
his  opinions  were  heated  to  the  temper  of  the  times 
and  shaped  to  the  instant  exigencies  of  the  forum, 
sometimes  to  his  own  convenience  at  the  moment, 
instead  of  being  the  slow  result  of  a  deliberate 
judgment  enlightened  by  intellectual  and  above  all 
historical  sympathy  with  his  subject.  His  interest 
was  rather  in  the  occasion  than  the  matter  of  the 
controversy.  No  aphorisms  of  political  science  are 
to  be  gleaned  from  his  writings  as  from  those  of 
Burke.  His  intense  personality  could  never  so  far 
dissociate  itself  from  the  question  at  issue  as  to  see 


MILTON  81 

it  in  its  larger  scope  and  more  universal  relations. 
He  was  essentially  a  doctrinaire^  ready  to  sacrifice 
everything  to  what  at  the  moment  seemed  the  ab 
stract  truth,  and  with  no  regard  to  historical  ante 
cedents  and  consequences,  provided  those  of  scho 
lastic  logic  were  carefully  observed.  He  has  no 
respect  for  usage  or  tradition  except  when  they 
count  in  his  favor,  and  sees  no  virtue  in  that  power 
of  the  past  over  the  minds  and  conduct  of  men 
which  alone  insures  the  continuity  of  national 
growth  and  is  the  great  safeguard  of  order  and 
progress.  The  life  of  a  nation  was  of  less  impor 
tance  to  him  than  that  it  should  be  conformed  to 
certain  principles  of  belief  and  conduct.  Burke 
coulcl  distil  political  wisdom  out  of  history  because 
he  had  a  profound  consciousness  of  the  soul  that 
underlies  and  outlives  events,  and  of  the  national 
character  that  gives  them  meaning  and  coherence. 
Accordingly  his  words  are  still  living  and  opera 
tive,  while  Milton's  pamphlets  are  strictly  occa 
sional  and  no  longer  interesting  except  as  they 
illustrate  him.  In  the  Latin  ones  especially  there 
is  an  odd  mixture  of  the  pedagogue  and  the  public 
orator.  His  training,  so  far  as  it  was  thorough,  so 
far,  indeed,  as  it  may  be  called  optional,  was  purely 
poetical  and  artistic.  A  true  Attic  bee,  he  made 
boot  on  every  lip  where  there  was  a  trace  of  truly 
classic  honey. 

Milton,  indeed,  could  hardly  have  been  a  match 
for  some  of  his  antagonists  in  theological  and 
ecclesiastical  learning.  But  he  brought  into  the 
contest  a  white  heat  of  personal  conviction  that 


82  MILTON 

counted  for  much.  His  self-consciousness,  always 
active,  identified  him  with  the  cause  he  undertook. 
"  I  conceived  myself  to  be  now  not  as  mine  own 
person,  but  as  a  member  incorporate  into  that 
truth  whereof  I  was  persuaded  and  whereof  I  had 
declared  myself  openly  to  be  the  partaker."  1  Ac 
cordingly  it  does  not  so  much  seem  that  he  is  the 
advocate  of  Puritanism,  Freedom  of  Conscience,  or 
the  People  of  England,  as  that  all  these  are  Ae, 
and  that  he  is  speaking  for  himself.  He  was  not 
nice  in  the  choice  of  his  missiles,  and  too  often 
borrows  a  dirty  lump  from  the  dunghill  of  Luther ; 
but  now  and  then  the  gnarled  sticks  of  controversy 
turn  to  golden  arrows  ef  Phoebus  in  his  trembling 
hands,  singing  as  they  fly  and  carrying  their  mes 
sages  of  doom  in  music.  Then,  truly,  in  his  prose 
as  in  his  verse,  his  is  the  large  utterance  of  the 
early  gods,  and  there  is  that  in  him  which  tramples 
all  learning  under  his  victorious  feet.  From  the 
first  he  looked  upon  himself  as  a  man  dedicated 
and  set  apart.  He  had  that  sublime  persuasion  of 
a  divine  mission  which  sometimes  lifts  his  speech 
from  personal  to  cosmopolitan  significance ;  his 
genius  unmistakably  asserts  itself  from  time  to 
time,  calling  down  fire  from  heaven  to  kindle  the 
sacrifice  of  irksome  private  duty,  and  turning  the 
hearthstone  of  an  obscure  man  into  an  altar  for  the 
worship  of  mankind.  Plainly  enough  here  was  a 
man  who  had  received  something  other  than  Epis 
copal  ordination.  Mysterious  and  awful  powers 
had  laid  their  unimaginable  hands  on  that  fair 

1  Apology  for  Smectymnuus. 


MILTON  83 

head  and  devoted  it  to  a  nobler  service.  Yet  it 
must  be  confessed  that,  with  the  single  exception 
of  the  "  Areopagitica,"  Milton's  tracts  are  weari 
some  reading,  and  going  through  them  is  like 
a  long  sea- voyage  whose  monotony  is  more  than 
compensated  for  the  moment  by  a  stripe  of  phos 
phorescence  heaping  before  you  in  a  drift  of  star- 
sown  snow,  coiling  away  behind  in  winking  disks 
of  silver,  as  if  the  conscious  element  were  giving 
out  all  the  moonlight  it  had  garnered  in  its  loyal 
depths  since  first  it  gazed  upon  its  pallid  regent. 
Which,  being  interpreted,  means  that  his  prose  is 
of  value  because  it  is  Milton's,  because  it  some 
times  exhibits  -in  an  inferior  degree  the  qualities  oi 
his  verse,  and  not  for  its  power  of  thought,  of  rea 
soning,  or  of  statement.  It  is  valuable,  where  it  is 
best,  for  its  inspiring  quality,  like  the  fervencies  of 
a  Hebrew  prophet.  The  English  translation  of 
the  Bible  had  to  a  very  great  degree  Judaized,  not 
the  English  mind,  but  the  Puritan  temper.  Those 
fierce  enthusiasts  could  more  easily  find  elbow-room 
for  their  consciences  in  an  ideal  Israel  than  in  a 
practical  England.  It  was  convenient  to  see  Ama- 
lek  or  Philistia  in  the  men  who  met  them  in  the 
field,  and  one  unintelligible  horn  or  other  of  the 
Beast  in  their  theological  opponents.  The  spiritual 
provincialism  of  the  Jewish  race  found  something 
congenial  in  the  English  mind.  Their  national 
egotism  quintessentialized  in  the  prophets  was  es 
pecially  sympathetic  with  the  personal  egotism  of 
Milton.  It  was  only  as  an  inspired  and  irrespon 
sible  person  that  he  could  live  on  decent  terms  with 


84  MILTON 

his  own  self-confident  individuality.  There  is  an 
intolerant  egotism  which  identifies  itself  with  om 
nipotence,1  and  whose  sublimity  is  its  apology; 
there  is  an  intolerable  egotism  which  subordinates 
the  sun  to  the  watch  in  its  own  fob.  Milton's  was 
of  the  former  kind,  and  accordingly  the  finest  pas 
sages  in  his  prose  and  not  the  least  fine  in  his  verse 
are  autobiographic,  and  this  is  the  more  striking 
that  they  are  often  unconsciously  so.  Those  fallen 
angels  in  utter  ruin  and  combustion  hurled,  are 
also  cavaliers  fighting  against  the  Good  Old  Cause; 
Philistia  is  the  Restoration,  and  what  Samson  did, 
that  Milton  would  have  done  if  he  could. 

The  "  Areopagitica "  might  seem  an  exception, 
but  that  also  is  a  plea  rather  than  an  argument, 
and  his  interest  in  the  question  is  not  one  of  ab 
stract  principle,  but  of  personal  relation  to  himself. 
He  was  far  more  rhetorician  than  thinker.  The 
sonorous  amplitude  of  his  style  was  better  fitted  to 
persuade  the  feelings  than  to  convince  the  reason. 
The  only  passages  from  his  prose  that  may  be  said 
to  have  survived  are  emotional,  not  argumentative, 
or  they  have  lived  in  virtue  of  their  figurative 
beauty,  not  their  weight  of  thought.  Milton's 
power  lay  in  dilation.  Touched  by  him,  the  sim 
plest  image,  the  most  obvious  thought, 

"  Dilated  stood 
Like  Teneriffe  or  Atlas  .  .  . 
.  .  .  nor  wanted  in  his  grasp 
What  seemed  both  spear  and  shield." 

1  "  For  him  I  was  not  sent,  nor  yet  to  free 

That  people,  victor  once,  now  vile  and  base, 
Deservedly  made  vassal."  (P.  E.,  IV.  131-133.) 


MILTON  85 

But  the  thin  stiletto  of  Macchiavelli  is  a  more 
effective  weapon  than  these  fantastic  arms  of  his. 
He  had  not  the  secret  of  compression  that  properly 
belongs  to  the  political  thinker,  on  whom,  as  Haz- 
litt  said  of  himself,  "nothing  but  abstract  ideas 
makes  any  impression."  Almost  every  aphoristic 
phrase  that  he  has  made  current  is  borrowed  from 
some  one  of  the  classics,  like  his  famous 

"License  they  mean  when  they  cry  liberty," 

from  Tacitus.  This  is  no  reproach  to  him  so  far 
as  his  true  function,  that  of  poet,  is  concerned.  It 
is  his  peculiar  glory  that  literature  was  with  him 
so  much  an  art,  an  end  and  not  a  means.  Of  his 
political  work  he  has  himself  told  us,  "I  should 
not  choose  this  manner  of  writing,  wherein,  know 
ing  myself  inferior  to  myself  (led  by  the  genial 
power  of  nature  to  another  task),  I  have  the  use, 
as  I  may  account,  but  of  my  left  hand." 

Mr.  Masson  has  given  an  excellent  analysis  of 
these  writings,  selecting  with  great  judgment  the 
salient  passages,  which  have  an  air  of  blank-verse 
thinly  disguised  as  prose,  like  some  of  the  cor 
rupted  passages  of  Shakespeare.  We  are  partic 
ularly  thankful  to  him  for  his  extracts  from  the 
pamphlets  written  against  Milton,  especially  for 
such  as  contain  criticisms  on  his  style.  It  is  not 
a  little  interesting  to  see  the  most  stately  of  poets 
reproached  for  his  use  of  vulgarisms  and  low 
words.  We  seem  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  schooling 
of  his  "  choiceful  sense  "  to  that  nicety  which  could 
not  be  content  till  it  had  made  his  native  tongue 


86  MILTON 

"  search  all  her  coffers  round."  One  cannot  help 
thinking  also  that  his  practice  in  prose,  especially 
in  the  long  involutions  of  Latin  periods,  helped 
him  to  give  that  variety  of  pause  and  that  majestic 
harmony  to  his  blank-verse  which  have  made  it  so 
unapproachably  his  own.  Landor,  who,  like  Mil 
ton,  seems  to  have  thought  in  Latin,  has  caught 
somewhat  more  than  others  of  the  dignity  of  his 
gait,  but  without  his  length  of  stride.  Words 
worth,  at  his  finest,  has  perhaps  approached  it,  but 
with  how  long  an  interval !  Bryant  has  not  sel 
dom  attained  to  its  serene  equanimity,  but  never 
emulates  its  pomp.  Keats  has  caught  something 
of  its  large  utterance,  but  altogether  fails  of  its 
nervous  severity  of  phrase.  Cowper's  muse  (that 
moved  with  such  graceful  ease  in  slippers)  becomes 
stiff  when  (in  his  translation  of  Homer)  she  buc 
kles  on  her  feet  the  cothurnus  of  Milton.  Thom 
son  grows  tumid  wherever  he  assays  the  grandiosity 
of  his  model.  It  is  instructive  to  get  any  glimpse 
of  the  slow  processes  by  which  Milton  arrived  at 
that  classicism  which  sets  him  apart  from,  if  not 
above,  all  our  other  poets. 

In  gathering  up  the  impressions  made  upon  us 
by  Mr.  Masson's  work  as  a  whole,  we  are  inclined 
rather  to  regret  his  copiousness  for  his  own  sake 
than  for  ours.  The  several  parts,  though  dispro 
portionate,  are  valuable,  his  research  has  been  con 
scientious,  and  he  has  given  us  better  means  of 
understanding  Milton's  time  than  we  possessed  be- 
f or,e.  But  how  is  it  about  Milton  himself  ?  Here 
was  a  chance,  it  seems  to  me,  for  a  fine  bit  of  por- 


MILTON  87 

trait-painting.  There  is  hardly  a  more  stately  fig 
ure  in  literary  history  than  Milton's,  no  life  in  some 
of  its  aspects  more  tragical,  except  Dante's.  In 
both  these  great  poets,  more  than  in  any  others, 
the  character  of  the  men  makes  part  of  the  singu 
lar  impressiveness  of  what  they  wrote  and  of  its 
vitality  with  after  times.  In  them  the  man  some 
how  overtops  the  author.  The  works  of  both  are 
full  of  autobiographical  confidences.  Like  Dante, 
Milton  was  forced  to  become  a  party  by  himself. 
He  stands  out  in  marked  and  solitary  individuality, 
apart  from  the  great  movement  of  the  Civil  War, 
apart  from  the  supine  acquiescence  of  the  Restora 
tion,  a  self-opinionated,  unforgiving,  and  unforget- 
ting  man.  Very  much  alive  he  certainly  was  in 
his  day.  Has  Mr.  Masson  made  him  alive  to  us 
again?  I  fear  not.  At  the  same  time,  while  we 
cannot  praise  either  the  style  or  the  method  of  Mr. 
Masson's  work,  we  cannot  refuse  to  be  grateful  for 
it.  It  is  not  so  much  a  book  for  the  ordinary 
reader  of  biography  as  for  the  student,  and  will  be 
more  likely  to  find  its  place  on  the  library-shelf 
than  on  the  centre-table.  It  does  not  in  any  sense 
belong  to  light  literature,  but  demands  all  the  mus 
cle  of  the  trained  and  vigorous  reader.  "Truly, 
in  respect  of  itself,  it  is  a  good  life ;  but  in  respect 
that  it  is  Milton's  life  it  is  naught." 

Mr.  Masson's  intimacy  with  the  facts  and  dates 
of  Milton's  career  renders  him  peculiarly  fit  in 
some  respects  to  undertake  an  edition  of  the  poet 
ical  works.  His  edition,  accordingly,  has  distin 
guished  merits.  The  introductions  to  the  several 


88  MILTON 

poems  are  excellent  and  leave  scarcely  anything  to 
be  desired.  The  general  Introduction,  on  the  other 
hand,  contains  a  great  deal  that  might  well  have 
been  omitted,  and  not  a  little  that  is  positively 
erroneous.  Mr.  Masson's  discussions  of  Milton's 
English  seem  often  to  be  those  of  a  Scotsman  to 
whom  English  is  in  some  sort  a  foreign  tongue. 
It  is  almost  wholly  inconclusive,  because  confined 
to  the  Miltonic  verse,  while  the  basis  of  any  alto 
gether  satisfactory  study  should  surely  be  the  Mil- 
tonic  prose ;  nay,  should  include  all  the  poetry  and 
prose  of  his  own  age  and  of  that  immediately  pre 
ceding  it.  The  uses  to  which  Mr.  Masson  has  put 
the  concordance  to  Milton's  poems  tempt  one  some 
times  to  class  him  with  those  whom  the  poet  him 
self  taxed  with  being  "  the  mousehunts  and  ferrets 
of  an  index."  For  example,  what  profits  a  discus 
sion  of  Milton's  aTrag  Xeyo/Aevo,  a  matter  in  which 
accident  is  far  more  influential  than  choice?1 
What  sensible  addition  is  made  to  our  stock  of 
knowledge  by  learning  that  "  the  word  woman  does 
not  occur  in  any  form  in  Milton's  poetry  before 
'  Paradise  Lost,' "  and  that  it  is  "  exactly  so  with 
the  word  female  "  ?  Is  it  any  way  remarkable  that 
such  words  as  Adam,  God,  Heaven,  Hell,  Para 
dise,  Sin,  Satan,  and  Serpent  should  occur  "  very 
frequently  "  in  "  Paradise  Lost "  ?  Would  it  not 
rather  have  been  surprising  that  they  should  not  ? 
Such  trifles  at  best  come  under  the  head  of  what 

1  If  things  are  to  be  scanned  so  micrologically,  what  weighty 
inferences  might  not  be  drawn  from  Mr.  Masson's  invariably  print 
ing  eura£  \eyo/j.eva  ! 


MILTON  89 

old  Warner  would  have  called  cumber-minds.  It 
is  time  to  protest  against  this  minute  style  of 
editing  and  commenting  great  poets.  Gulliver's 
microscopic  eye  saw  on  the  fair  skins  of  the  Brob- 
dignagian  maids  of  honor  "  a  mole  here  and  there 
as  broad  as  a  trencher,"  and  we  shrink  from  a  cup 
of  the  purest  Hippocrene  after  the  critic's  solar 
microscope  has  betrayed  to  us  the  grammatical, 
syntactical,  and,  above  all,  hypothetical  monsters 
that  sprawl  in  every  drop  of  it.  When  a  poet  has 
been  so  much  edited  as  Milton,  the  temptation  of 
whosoever  undertakes  a  new  edition  to  see  what  is 
not  to  be  seen  becomes  great  in  proportion  as  he 
finds  how  little  there  is  that  has  not  been  seen 
before. 

Mr.  Masson  is  quite  right  in  choosing  to  mod 
ernize  the  spelling  of  Milton,  for  surely  the  reading 
of  our  classics  should  be  made  as  little  difficult  as 
possible,  and  he  is  right  also  in  making  an  excep 
tion  of  such  abnormal  forms  as  the  poet  may  fairly 
be  supposed  to  have  chosen  for  melodic  reasons. 
His  exhaustive  discussion  of  the  spelling  of  the  orig 
inal  editions  seems,  however,  to  be  the  less  called- 
for  as  he  himself  appears  to  admit  that  the  compos 
itor,  not  the  author,  was  supreme  in  these  matters, 
and  that  in  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  cases  to 
the  thousand  Milton  had  no  system,  but  spelt 
by  immediate  inspiration.  Yet  Mr.  Masson  fills 
nearly  four  pages  with  an  analysis  of  the  vowel 
sounds,  in  which,  as  if  to  demonstrate  the  futility 
of  such  attempts  so  long  as  men's  ears  differ,  he 
tells  us  that  the  short  a  sound  is  the  same  in  man 


90  MILTON 

and  Darby,  the  short  o  sound  in  God  and  does, 
and  what  he  calls  the  long  o  sound  in  broad  and 
wrath.  Speaking  of  the  apostrophe,  Mr.  Masson 
tells  us  that  "it  is  sometimes  inserted,  not  as  a 
possessive  mark  at  all,  but  merely  as  a  plural 
mark :  hero's  for  heroes,  myrtle's  for  myrtles,  Gor- 
gons  and  Hydra's,  etc."  Now,  in  books  printed 
about  the  time  of  Milton's  the  apostrophe  was  put 
in  almost  at  random,  and  in  all  the  cases  cited  is 
a  misprint,  except  in  the  first,  where  it  serves  to  in 
dicate  that  the  pronunciation  was  not  heroes  as  it 
had  formerly  been.1  In  the  "  possessive  singular 
of  nouns  already  ending  in  s,"  Mr.  Masson  tells  us, 
"  Milton's  general  practice  is  not  to  double  the  s ; 
thus,  Nereus  wrinkled  look,  Glaucus  spell.  The 
necessities  of  metre  would  naturally  constrain  to 
such  forms.  In  a  possessive  followed  by  the  word 
sake  or  the  word  side,  dislike  to  [of]  the  double 
sibilant  makes  us  sometimes  drop  the  inflection.  In 
addition  to  ''for  righteousness1  sake '  such  phrases 
as  ''for  thy  name  sake '  and  '•for  mercy  sake,'  are 
allowed  to  pass;  bedside  is  normal  and  riverside 
nearly  so."  The  necessities  of  metre  need  not  be 
taken  into  account  with  a  poet  like  Milton,  who 
never  was  fairly  in  his  element  till  he  got  off  the 
soundings  of  prose  and  felt  the  long  swell  of  his 

1  "  That  you  may  tell  heroes,  when  you  come 
To  banquet  with  your  wife." 

Chapman's  Odyssey,  VIII.  336,  337. 
In  the  facsimile  of  the  sonnet  to  Fairfax  I  find 

"  Thy  firm  uiishak'n  vertue  ever  brings," 
which  shows  how  much  faith  we  need  give  to  the  apostrophe. 


MILTON  91 

verse  under  him  like  a  steed  that  knows  his  rider. 
But  does  the  dislike  of  the  double  sibilant  account 
for  the  dropping  of  the  s  in  these  cases  ?  Is  it  not 
far  rather  the  presence  of  the  s  already  in  the 
sound  satisfying  an  ear  accustomed  to  the  English 
slovenliness  in  the  pronunciation  of  double  conso 
nants  ?  It  was  this  which  led  to  such  forms  as  con 
science  sake  and  on  justice  side,  and  which  beguiled 
Ben  Jonson  and  Dryden  into  thinking,  the  one 
that  noise  and  the  other  that  corps  was  a  plural.1 
What  does  Mr.  Masson  say  to  hillside,  Bankside, 
seaside,  Cheapside,  spindleside,  spearside,  gospel' 
side  (of  a  church),  nights ide,  countryside,  way 
side,  brookside,  and  I  know  not  how  many  more  ? 
Is  the  first  half  of  these  words  a  possessive  ?  Or 
is  it  not  rather  a  noun  impressed  into  the  service 
as  an  adjective?  How  do  such  words  differ  from 
Jiilltop,  townend,  candlelight,  rushlight,  cityman, 
and  the  like,  where  no  double  s  can  be  made  the 
scapegoat?  Certainly  Milton  would  not  have 
avoided  them  for  their  sibilancy,  he  who  wrote 

"  And  airy  tongues  that  syllable  men's  names 
On  sands  and  shores  and  desert  wildernesses, " 

"  So  in  his  seed  all  nations  shall  be  blest," 
"  And  seat  of  Salmanasser  whose  success," 

1  Mr.  Masson  might  have  cited  a  good  example  of  this  from, 
j5rummond,  whom  (as  a  Scotsman)  he  is  fond  of  quoting  for  an 
authority  in  English,  — 

"Sleep,  Silence'  child,  sweet  father  of  soft  rest." 

The  survival  of  Horse  for  horses  is  another  example.  So  by  a 
reverse  process  pult  and  shay  have  been  vulgarly  deduced  from 
the  supposed  plurals  pulse  and  chaise. 


92  MILTON 

verses  that  hiss  like  Medtisa's  head  in  wrath,  and 
who  was,  I  think,  fonder  of  the  sound  than  any 
other  of  our  poets.  Indeed,  in  compounds  of  the 
kind  we  always  make  a  distinction  wholly  indepen 
dent  of  the  doubled  s.  Nobody  would  boggle  at 
mountainside ;  no  one  would  dream  of  saying  on 
the  fatherside  or  motherside. 

Mr.  Masson  speaks  of  "  the  Miltonic  forms  van- 
quisht,  markt,  lookt,  etc."  Surely  he  does  not  mean 
to  imply  that  these  are  peculiar  to  Milton  ?  Chap 
man  used  them  before  Milton  was  born,  and  pressed 
them  farther,  as  in  nak't  and  saf't  for  naked  and 
saved.  He  often  prefers  the  contracted  form  in 
his  prose  also,  showing  that  the  full  form  of  the 
past  participle  in  ed  was  passing  out  of  fashion, 
though  available  in  verse.1  Indeed,  I  venture  to 
affirm  that  there  is  not  a  single  variety  of  spelling 
or  accent  to  be  found  in  Milton  which  is  without 
example  in  his  predecessors  or  contemporaries. 
Even  highth,  which  is  thought  peculiarly  Miltonic, 
is  common  (in  Hakluyt,  for  example),  and  still 

1  Chapman's  spelling  is  presumably  his  own.  At  least  he 
looked  after  his  printed  texts.  I  have  two  copies  of  his  Byron's 
Conspiracy,  both  dated  1608,  bat  one  evidently  printed  later  than 
the  other,  for  it  shows  corrections.  The  more  solemn  ending  in  ed 
was  probably  kept  alive  by  the  reading  of  the  Bible  in  churches. 
Though  now  dropped  by  the  clergy,  it  is  essential  to  the  right 
hearing  of  the  more  metrical  passages  in  the  Old  Testament, 
•which  are  finer  and  more  scientific  than  anything  in  the  language, 
unless  it  be  some  parts  of  Samson  Agonistes.  I  remember  an  old 
gentleman  who  always  used  the  contracted  form  of  the  partici 
ple  in  conversation,  but  always  gave  it  back  its  embezzled  syllable 
in  reading.  Sir  Thomas  Browne  seems  to  have  preferred  the 
more  solemn  form.  At  any  rate  he  has  the  spelling  empuzzeled 
in  prose. 


MILTON  93 

often  heard  in  New  England.  Mr.  Masson  gives 
an  odd  reason  for  Milton's  preference  of  it  "  as  in 
dicating  more  correctly  the  formation  of  the  word 
by  the  addition  of  the  suffix  th  to  the  adjective 
high."  Is  an  adjective,  then,  at  the  base  of  growth, 
earth,  birth,  truth,  and  other  words  of  this  kind  ? 
Home  Tooke  made  a  better  guess  than  this.  If 
Mr.  Masson  be  right  in  supposing  that  a  peculiar 
meaning  is  implied  in  the  spelling  bearth  (Para 
dise  Lost,  IX.  624),  which  he  interprets  as  "  collec 
tive  produce,"  though  in  the  only  other  instance 
where  it  occurs  it  is  neither  more  nor  less  than 
birth,  it  should  seem  that  Milton  had  hit  upon 
Home  Tooke's  etymology.  But  it  is  really  solemn 
trifling  to  lay  any  stress  on  the  spelling  of  the 
original  editions,  after  having  admitted,  as  Mr. 
Masson  has  honestly  done,  that  in  all  likelihood 
Milton  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  And  yet  he 
cannot  refrain.  On  the  word  voutsafe  he  hangs 
nearly  a  page  of  dissertation  on  the  nicety  of  Mil 
ton's  ear.  Mr.  Masson  thinks  that  Milton  "must 
have  had  a  reason  for  it,"  :  and  finds  that  reason 
in  "  his  dislike  to  [of]  the  sound  ch,  or  to  [of]  that 
sound  combined  with  s.  .  .  .  His  fine  ear  taught 
him  not  only  to  seek  for  musical  effects  and  ca 
dences  at  large,  but  also  to  be  fastidious  as  to  syl- 

1  He  thinks  the  same  of  the  variation  strook  and  struck,  though 
they  were  probably  pronounced  alike.  In  Marlowe's  Faustus 
two  consecutive  sentences  (in  prose)  begin  with  the  words  "  Cursed 
be  he  that  struck."  In  a  note  on  the  passage  Mr.  Dyce  tells  us 
that  the  old  editions  (there  were  three)  have  stroke  and  strooke  in 
the  first  instance,  and  all  agree  on  strucke  in  the  second.  No  in* 
f erence  can  be  drawn  from  such  casualties. 


94  MILTON 

lables,  and  to  avoid  harsh  or  difficult  conjunctions 
of  consonants,  except  when  there  might  be  a  mu 
sical  reason  for  harshness  or  difficulty.  In  the 
management  of  the  letter  s,  the  frequency  of  which 
in  English  is  one  of  the  faults  of  the  speech,  he 
will  be  found,  I  believe,  most  careful  and  skilful. 
More  rarely,  I  think,  than  in  Shakespeare  will  one 
word  ending  in  s  be  found  followed  immediately 
in  Milton  by  another  word  beginning  with  the  same 
letter ;  or,  if  he  does  occasionally  pen  such  a  phrase 
as  MoaVs  sows,  it  will  be  difficult  to  find  in  him, 
I  believe,  such  a  harsher  example  as  earth's  sub 
stance,  of  which  many  writers  would  think  nothing. 
[With  the  index  to  back  him  Mr.  Masson  could 
safely  say  this.]  The  same  delicacy  of  ear  is  even 
more  apparent  in  his  management  of  the  sh  sound. 
He  has  it  often,  of  course ;  but  it  may  be  noted 
that  he  rejects  it  in  his  verse  when  he  can.  He 
writes  Basan  for  Bashan,  Sittim  for  SMttim, 
Silo  for  /Shiloh,  Asdod  for  Ashdod.  Still  more, 
however,  does  he  seem  to  have  been  wary  of  the 
compound  sound  ch  as  in  church.  Of  his  sensitive 
ness  to  this  sound  in  excess  there  is  a  curious  proof 
in  his  prose  pamphlet  entitled  '  An  Apology  against 
a  Pamphlet,  called  A  Modest  Completion,  etc.,' 
where,  having  occasion  to  quote  these  lines  from 
one  of  the  Satires l  of  his  opponent,  Bishop  Hall, 

1  The  lines  are  not  "  from  one  of  the  Satires,"  and  Milton  made 
them  worse  by  misquoting  and  bringing  love  jinglingly  near  to 
grove.  Hall's  verse  (in  his  Satires)  is  always  vigorous  and  often 
harmonious.  He  long  before  Milton  spoke  of  rhyme  almost  in 
the  very  terms  of  the  preface  to  Paradise  Lost. 


MILTON  95 

'  Teach  each  hollow  grove  to  sound  his  love, 
Wearying  echo  with  one  changeless  word,' 

he  adds,  ironically,  '  And  so  he  well  might,  and  all 
his  auditory  besides,  with  his  teach  each  1 ' :  Gen 
eralizations  are  always  risky,  but  when  extempo 
rized  from  a  single  hint  they  are  maliciously  so. 
Surely  it  needed  no  great  sensitiveness  of  ear  to  be 
set  on  edge  by  Hall's  echo  of  teach  each.  Did 
Milton  reject  the  h  from  Bashan  and  the  rest  be 
cause  he  disliked  the  sound  of  sh,  or  because  he 
had  found  it  already  rejected  by  the  Vulgate  and 
by  some  of  the  earlier  translators  of  the  Bible  into 
English?  Oddly  enough,  Milton  uses  words  be 
ginning  with  sh  seven  hundred  and  fifty -four  times 
in  his  poetry,  not  to  speak  of  others  in  which  the 
sound  occurs,  as,  for  instance,  those  ending  in  tion. 
Hall,  had  he  lived  long  enough,  might  have  retorted 
on  Milton  his  own 

"  Manliest,  resolutesf,  "breast, 
As  the  magnetick  hardest  iron  draws, ' ' 

or  his 

"  What  moves  thy  inquisition  ? 
Know'st  thou  not  that  my  rising  is  thy  fall, 
And  my  promotion  thy  destruction  ?  " 

With  the  playful  controversial  wit  of  the  day  he 
would  have  hinted  that  too  much  est-est  is  as  fatal 
to  a  blank-verse  as  to  a  bishop,  and  that  danger 
was  often  incurred  by  those  who  too  eagerly 
shunned  it.  Nay,  he  might  even  have  found  an 
echo  almost  tallying  with  his  own  in 

"  To  hegirt  the  almighty  throne 
Beseeching  or  hesieging," 


96  MILTON 

a  pun  worthy  of  Milton's  worst  prose.  Or  he 
might  have  twitted  him  with  "  a  sequent  king  who 
seeks."  As  for  the  sh  sound,  a  poet  could  hardly 
have  found  it  ungracious  to  his  ear  who  wrote, 

"  GnasAing  for  anguisA  and  despite  and  sAame, 

or  again, 

"  Then  bursting  forth 

Afresh  with  conscious  terrors  vex  me  round 
That  rest  or  intermission  none  I  find. 
Before  mine  eyes  in  opposition  sits 
Grim  Death,  my  son." 

And  if  Milton  disliked  the  cJi  sound,  he  gave  his 
ears  unnecessary  pain  by  verses  such  as  these,  — 

' '  Straight  coucAes  close  ;  then,  rising,  changes  oft 
His  coucAant  watch,  as  one  who  chose  his  ground  "  ; 

still  more  by  such  a  juxtaposition  as  "matchless 
chief."  i 

The  truth  is,  that  Milton  was  a  harmonist  rather 
than  a  melodist.  There  are,  no  doubt,  some  exqui 
site  melodies  (like  the  "  Sabrina  Fair  ")  among  his 
earlier  poems,  as  could  hardly  fail  to  be  the  case 

1  Mr.  Masson  goes  so  far  as  to  conceive  it  possible  that  Milton 
may  have  committed  the  vulgarism  of  leaving  a  t  out  of  slep'st, 
"for  ease  of  sound."  Yet  the  poet  could  bear  boast'st  and  —  one 
stares  and  gasps  at  it —  doaCdst.  There  is,  by  the  way,  a  fami 
liar  passage  in  which  the  ch  sound  predominates,  not  without  a 
touch  of  sh  in  a  single  couplet :  — 

"  Can  any  mortal  mixture  of  earth's  mould 

Breathe  such  divine  encAanting  ravisAment  ?  " 
So 

"  Blotches  and  blains  must  all  his  flesh  emboss," 
and  perhaps 

"  I  see  his  tents 
Pitched  about  Sechem  " 
might  be  added. 


MILTON  97 

in  an  age  which  produced  or  trained  the  authors  of 
our  best  English  glees,  as  ravishing  in  their  instinc 
tive  felicity  as  the  songs  of  our  dramatists,  but  he 
also  showed  from  the  first  that  larger  style  which 
was  to  be  his  peculiar  distinction.  The  strain  heard 
in  the  "  Nativity  Ode,"  in  the  "  Solemn  Music,"  and 
in  '^Lycidas,"  is  of  a  higher  mood,  as  regards  met 
rical  construction,  than  anything  that  had  thrilled 
the  English  ear  before,  giving  no  uncertain  augury 
of  him  who  was  to  show  what  sonorous  metal  lay 
silent  till  he  touched  the  keys  in  the  epical  organ- 
pipes  of  our  various  language,  that  have  never 
since  felt  the  strain  of  such  prevailing  breath.  It 
was  in  the  larger  movements  of  metre  that  Milton 
was  great  and  original.  I  have  spoken  elsewhere  of 
Spenser's  fondness  for  dilation  as  respects  thoughts 
and  images.  In  Milton  it  extends  to  the  language 
also,  and  often  to  the  single  words  of  which  a  pe 
riod  is  composed.  He  loved  phrases  of  towering 
port,  in  which  every  member  dilated  stands  like 
Teneriffe  or  Atlas.  In  those  poems  and  passages 
that  stamp  him  great,  the  verses  do  not  dance  inter 
weaving  to  soft  Lydian  airs,  but  march  rather  with 
resounding  tread  and  clang  of  martial  music.  It  is 
true  that  he  is  cunning  in  alliterations,  so  scatter 
ing  them  that  they  tell  in  his  orchestra  without  be 
ing  obvious,  but  it  is  in  the  more  scientific  region 
of  open-voweled  assonances  which  seem  to  proffer 
rhyme  and  yet  withhold  it  (rhyme-wraiths  one 
might  call  them),  that  he  is  an  artist  and  a  master. 
He  even  sometimes  introduces  rhyme  with  mislead 
ing  intervals  between  and  unobviously  in  his  blank- 
verse  :  — 


98  MILTON 

"  There  rest,  if  any  rest  can  harbour  there  ; 
And,  reassembling  our  afflicted  powers, 
Consult  how  we  may  henceforth  most  offend 
Our  enemy,  our  own  loss  how  repair, 
How  overcome  this  dire  calamity, 
What  reinforcement  we  may  gain  from  hope, 
If  not,  what  resolution  from  despair."  1 

There  is  one  almost  perfect  quatrain,  —      _ 

"  Before  thy  fellows,  ambitious  to  win 
From  me  some  plume,  that  thy  success  may  show 
Destruction  to  the  rest.     This  pause  between 
(Unanswered  lest  thou  boast)  to  let  thee  know  "  ; 

and  another  hardly  less  so,  of  a  rhyme  and  an  as* 
sonance,  — 

"  If  once  they  hear  that  voice,  their  liveliest  pledge 
Of  hope  in  fears  and  dangers,  heard  so  oft 
In  worst  extremes  and  on  the  perilous  edge 
Of  battle  when  it  raged,  in  all  assaults. " 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  rhymes  in 
the  first  passage  cited  were  intentional,  and  perhaps 
they  were  so  in  the  others ;  but  Milton's  ear  has 
tolerated  not  a  few  perfectly  rhyming  couplets,  and 
others  in  which  the  assonance  almost  becomes 
rhyme,  certainly  a  fault  in  blank-verse  :  — 

"  From  the  Asian  Kings  (and  Parthian  among  these), 
From  India  and  the  Golden  Chersonese  "  ; 

"  That  soon  refreshed  him  wearied,  and  repaired 
What  hunger,  if  aught  hunger,  had  impaired  "  ; 

"  And  will  alike  be  punished,  whether  thou 
Reign  or  reign  not,  though  to  that  gentle  brow  " ; 

-  I  think  Coleridge's  nice  ear  would  have  blamed  the  nearness 
af  enemy  and  calamity  in  this  passage.  Mr.  Masson  leaves  out  the 
comma  after  If  not,  the  pause  of  which  is  needful,  I  think,  to  the 
sense,  and  certainly  to  keep  not  a  little  farther  apart  from  what, 
("teach  each"!) 


MILTON  99 

"Of  pleasure,  but  all  pleasure  to  destroy, 
Save  what  is  in  destroying,  other  joy  " ; 

"  Shall  all  be  Paradise,  far  happier  place 
Than  this  of  Eden,  and  far  happier  days  " ; 

"  This  my  long  sufferance  and  my  day  of  grace 
They  who  neglect  and  scorn  shall  never  taste ' ' ; 

"  So  far  remote  with  diminution  seen, 

First  in  his  East  the  glorious  lamp  was  seen."  1 

These  examples  (and  others  might  be  adduced) 
serve  to  show  that  Milton's  ear  was  too  busy  about 
the  larger  interests  of  his  measures  to  be  always 
careful  of  the  lesser.  He  was  a  strategist  rather 
than  a  drill-sergeant  in  verse,  capable,  beyond  any 
other  English  poet,  of  putting  great  masses  through 
the  most  complicated  evolutions  without  clash  or 
confusion,  but  he  was  not  curious  that  every  foot 
should  be  at  the  same  angle.  In  reading  "  Para 
dise  Lost "  one  has  a  feeling  of  vastness.  You 
float  under  an  illimitable  sky,  brimmed  with  sun 
shine  or  hung  with  constellations  ;  the  abysses  of 
space  are  about  you  ;  you  hear  the  cadenced  surges 
of  an  unseen  ocean ;  thunders  mutter  round  the 
horizon  ;  and  if  the  scene  change,  it  is  with  an  ele 
mental  movement  like  the  shifting  of  mighty  winds. 
His  imagination  seldom  condenses,  like  Shake 
speare's,  in  the  kindling  flash  of  a  single  epithet, 
but  loves  better  to  diffuse  itself.  Witness  his  de 
scriptions,  wherein  he  seems  to  circle  like  an  eagle 
bathing  in  the  blue  streams  of  air,  controlling  with 
his  eye  broad  sweeps  of  champaign  or  of  sea,  and 
rarely  fulmining  in  the  sudden  swoop  of  intenser 

1  "  First  in  his  East,"  is  not  soothing  to  the  ear. 


100  MILTON 

expression.  He  was  fonder  of  the  vague,  perhaps 
I  should  rather  say  the  indefinite,  where  more  is 
meant  than  meets  the  ear,  than  any  other  of  our 
poets.  He  loved  epithets  (like  old  and  far)  that 
suggest  great  reaches,  whether  of  space  or  time. 
This  bias  shows  itself  already  in  his  earlier  poems, 
as  where  he  hears 

' '  The  far  off  curfew  sound 
Over  some  widewatered  shore," 

or  where  he  fancies  the  shores  *  and  sounding  seas 
washing  Lycidas  far  away ;  but  it  reaches  its  cli 
max  in  the  "  Paradise  Lost."  He  produces  his 
effects  by  dilating  our  imaginations  with  an  impal 
pable  hint  rather  than  by  concentrating  them  upon 
too  precise  particulars.  Thus  in  a  famous  compar 
ison  of  his,  the  fleet  has  no  definite  port,  but  plies 
stemming  nightly  toward  the  pole  in  a  wide  ocean 
of  conjecture.  He  generalizes  always  instead  of 
specifying,  —  the  true  secret  of  the  ideal  treatment 
in  which  he  is  without  peer,  and,  though  every 
where  grandiose,  he  is  never  turgid.  Tasso  begins 
finely  with 

"  Chiama  gli  abitator  dell'  ombre  eterne 
II  rauco  suon  della  tartarea  tromba ; 
Treman  le  spaziose  atre  caverne, 
E  1'  aer  cieco  a  quel  rumor  rimbomba," 

but  soon  spoils  all  by  condescending  to  definite 
comparisons  with  thunder  and  intestinal  convul 
sions  of  the  earth ;  in  other  words,  he  is  unwary 
enough  to  give  us  a  standard  of  measurement,  and 

1  There  seems  to  be  something  wrong  in  this  word  shores.     Did 
Milton  write  shoals  ? 


MILTON  101 

the  moment  you  furnish  Imagination  with  a  yard 
stick  she  abdicates  in  favor  of  her  statistical  poor- 
relation  Commonplace.  Milton,  with  this  passage 
in  his  memory,  is  too  wise  to  hamper  himself  with 
any  statement  for  which  he  can  be  brought  to  book, 
but  wraps  himself  in  a  mist  of  looming  indefinite- 
ness; 

"  He  called  so  loud  that  all  the  hollow  deep 
Of  hell  resounded," 

thus  amplifying  more  nobly  by  abstention  from  his 
usual  method  of  prolonged  evolution.  No  caverns, 
however  spacious,  will  serve  his  turn,  because  they 
have  limits.  He  could  practise  this  self-denial  when 
his  artistic  sense  found  it  needful,  whether  for  vari 
ety  of  verse  or  for  the  greater  intensity  of  effect  to 
be  gained  by  abruptness.  His  more  elaborate  pas 
sages  have,  the  multitudinous  roll  of  thunder,  dying 
away  to  gather  a  sullen  force  again  from  its  own 
reverberations,  but  he  knew  that  the  attention  is 
recalled  and  arrested  by  those  claps  that  stop  short 
without  echo  and  leave  us  listening.  There  are  no 
such  vistas  and  avenues  of  verse  as  his.  In  reading 
the  "  Paradise  Lost  "  one  has  a  feeling  of  spacious 
ness  such  as  no  other  poet  gives.  Milton's  respect 
for  himself  and  for  his  own  mind  and  its  move 
ments  rises  wellnigh  to  veneration.  He  prepares 
the  way  for  his  thought  and  spreads  on  the  ground 
before  the  sacred  feet  of  his  verse  tapestries  inwoven 
with  figures  of  mythology  and  romance.  There  is 
no  such  unfailing  dignity  as  his.  Observe  at  what 
a  reverent  distance  he  begins  when  he  is  about  to 
speak  of  himself,  as  at  the  beginning  of  the  Third 


102  MILTON 

Book  and  the  Seventh.  His  sustained  strength  is 
especially  felt  in  his  beginnings.  He  seems  always 
to  start  full-sail ;  the  wind  and  tide  always  serve  ; 
there  is  never  any  fluttering  of  the  canvas.  In  this 
he  offers  a  striking  contrast  with  Wordsworth,  who 
has  to  go  through  with  a  great  deal  of  yo-heave- 
ohing  before  he  gets  under  way.  And  though,  in 
the  didactic  parts  of  "Paradise  Lost,"  the  wind 
dies  away  sometimes,  there  is  a  long  swell  that  will 
not  let  us  forget  it,  and  ever  and  anon  some  emi 
nent  verse  lifts  its  long  ridge  above  its  tamer  peers 
heaped  with  stormy  memories.  And  the  poem 
never  becomes  incoherent ;  we  feel  all  through  it, 
as  in  the  symphonies  of  Beethoven,  a  great  control 
ling  reason  in  whose  safe-conduct  we  trust  impli 
citly. 

Mr.  Masson's  discussions  of  Milton's  English  are, 
it  seems  to  me,  for  the  most  part  unsatisfactory. 
He  occupies  some  ten  pages,  for  example,  with  a 
history  of  the  genitival  form  its,  which  adds  noth 
ing  to  our  previous  knowledge  on  the  subject  and 
which  has  no  relation  to  Milton  except  for  its  bear 
ing  on  the  authorship  of  some  verses  attributed  to 
him  against  the  most  overwhelming  internal  evi 
dence  to  the  contrary.  Mr.  Masson  is  altogether 
too  resolute  to  find  traces  of  what  he  calls  oddly 
enough  "  recollectiveness  of  Latin  constructions  " 
in  Milton,  and  scents  them  sometimes  in  what 
would  seem  to  the  uninstructed  reader  very  idio 
matic  English.  More  than  once,  at  least,  he  has 
fancied  them  by  misunderstanding  the  passage  in 
which  they  seem  to  occur.  Thus,  in  "Paradise 
Lost,"  XI.  520,  521, 


MILTON  103 

"  Therefore  so  abject  is  their  punishment, 
Disfiguring  not  God's  likeness  but  their  own," 

has  no  analogy  with  eorum  deformantium,  for  the 
context  shows  that  it  is  the  punishment  which  dis 
figures.  Indeed,  Mr.  Masson  so  often  finds  con 
structions  difficult,  ellipses  strange,  and  words 
needing  annotation  that  are  common  to  all  poetry, 
nay,  sometimes  to  all  English,  that  his  notes  seem 
not  seldom  to  have  been  written  by  a  foreigner. 
On  this  passage  in  "  Comus,"  — 

"  I  do  not  think  my  sister  so  to  seek 
Or  so  unprincipled  in  virtue's  book 
And  the  sweet  peace  that  virtue  bosoms  ever 
As  that  the  single  want  of  light  and  noise 
(Not  being  in  danger,  as  I  trust  she  is  not) 
Could  stir  the  constant  mood  of  her  calm  thoughts," 

Mr.  Masson  tells  us,  that  "  in  very  strict  construc 
tion,  not  being  would  cling  to  want  as  its  substan 
tive  ;  but  the  phrase  passes  for  the  Latin  ablative 
absolute."  So  on  the  words  forestalling  night, 
"  i.  e.  anticipating.  Forestall  is  literally  to  antici 
pate  the  market  by  purchasing  goods  before  they 
are  brought  to  the  stall."  In  the  verse 

"  Thou  hast  immanacled  while  Heaven  sees  good," 

he  explains  that  "while  here  has  the  sense  of  so 
long  as."  But  Mr.  Masson's  notes  on  the  language 
are  his  weakest.  He  is  careful  to  tell  us,  for  exam 
ple,  "  that  there  are  instances  of  the  use  of  shine  as 
a  substantive  in  Spenser,  Ben  Jonson,  and  other 
poets."  It  is  but  another  way  of  spelling  sheen, 
and  if  Mr.  Masson  never  heard  a  shoeblack  in  the 
street  say,  "Shall  I  give  you  a  shine,  sir?"  his 


104  MILTON 

experience  Las  been  singular. l  His  notes  in  gen 
eral  are  very  good  (though  too  long).  Those  on 
the  astronomy  of  Milton  are  particularly  valuable. 
I  think  he  is  sometimes  a  little  too  scornful  of  par 
allel  passages,2  for  if  there  is  one  thing  more  strik 
ing  than  another  in  this  poet,  it  is  that  his  great 
and  original  imagination  was  almost  wholly  nour 
ished  by  books,  perhaps  I  should  rather  say  set  in 
motion  by  them.  It  is  wonderful  how,  from  the 
most  withered  and  juiceless  hint  gathered  iu  his 
reading,  his  grand  images  rise  like  an  exhalation ; 
how  from  the  most  battered  old  lamp  caught  in 
that  huge  drag-net  with  which  he  swept  the  waters 

1  But  his  etymological  notes  are  worse.   For  example,  "  recreant, 
renouncing  the  faith,  from  the  old  French  recroire,  which  again  is 
from  the  mediaeval  Latin  recredere,  to  '  believe  hack, '  or  aposta 
tize."     This  is  pure  fancy.     The  word  had    no  such  meaning  in 
either  language.     He  derives  serenate   from  sera,  and   says   that 
parle  means  treaty,  negotiation,  though  it  is  the  same  word  as  par 
ley,  had  the  same  meanings,  and  was  commonly  pronounced  like 
it,  as  in  Marlowe's 

"  What,  shall  we  parle  with  this  Christian  ?  " 

It  certainly  never  meant  treaty,  though  it  may  have  meant  negotia 
tion.  When  it  did  it  implied  the  meeting  face  to  face  of  the  prin 
cipals.  On  the  verses 

"  And  some  flowers  and  some  hays 

For  thy  hearse  to  strew  the  ways," 

he  has  a  note  to  tell  us  that  hearse  is  not  to  be  taken  "  in  our  sense 
of  a  carriage  for  the  dead,  but  in  the  older  sense  of  a  tomb  or 
framework  over  a  tomb,"  though  the  obvious  meaning  is  "to 
strew  the  ways  for  thy  hearse."  How  could  one  do  that  for  a 
tomb  or  the  framework  over  it  ? 

2  A  passage  from  Dante  (Inferno,  XI.  96-105),  with  its  refer 
ence  to  Aristotle,  would  have  given  him  the  meaning  of  "  Nature 
taught  art,"  which  seems  to  puzzle  him.     A  study  of  Dante  and 
of  his  earlier  commentators  would  also  have  been  of  great  service 
in  the  astronomical  notes. 


MILTON  105 

of  learning,  he  could  conjure  a  tall  genius  to  build 
his  palaces.  Whatever  he  touches  swells  and  tow 
ers.  That  wonderful  passage  in  "  Comus  "  of  the 
airy  tongues,  perhaps  the  most  imaginative  in  sug 
gestion  he  ever  wrote,  was  conjured  out  of  a  dry 
sentence  in  Purchas's  abstract  of  Marco  Polo.  Such 
examples  help  us  to  understand  the  poet.  When  I 
find  that  Sir  Thomas  Browne  had  said  before  Mil 
ton,  that  Adam  "  was  the  wisest  of  all  men  since," 
I  am  glad  to  find  this  link  between  the  most  pro 
found  and  the  most  stately  imagination  of  that  age. 
Such  parallels  sometimes  give  a  hint  also  of  the 
historical  development  of  our  poetry,  of  its  apostol 
ical  succession,  so  to  speak.  Every  one  has  noticed 
Milton's  fondness  of  sonorous  proper  names,  which 
have  not  only  an  acquired  imaginative  value  by  as 
sociation,  and  so  serve  to  awaken  our  poetic  sensi 
bilities,  but  have  likewise  a  merely  musical  signi 
ficance.  This  he  probably  caught  from  Marlowe, 
traces  of  whom  are  frequent  in  him.  There  is  cer 
tainly  something  of  what  afterwards  came  to  be 
called  Miltonic  in  more  than  one  passage  of  "  Tam- 
burlaine,"  a  play  in  which  gigantic  force  seems 
struggling  from  the  block,  as  in  Michael  Angelo's 
Dawn. 

Mr.  Masson's  remarks  on  the  versification  of 
Milton  are,  in  the  main,  judicious,  but  when  he 
ventures  on  particulars,  one  cannot  always  agree 
with  him.  He  seems  to  understand  that  our  pros 
ody  is  accentual  merely,  and  yet,  when  he  comes  to 
what  he  calls  variations,  he  talks  of  the  "  substitu 
tion  of  the  Trochee,  the  Pyrrhic,  or  the  Spondee, 


106  MILTON 

for  the  regular  Iambus,  or  of  the  Anapaest,  the 
Dactyl,  the  Tribrach,  etc.,  for  the  same."  This  is 
always  misleading.  The  shift  of  the  accent  in 
what  Mr.  Masson  calls  "  dissyllabic  variations  "  is 
common  to  all  pentameter  verse,  and,  in  the  other 
case,  most  of  the  words  cited  as  trisyllables  either 
were  not  so  in  Milton's  day,1  or  were  so  or  not  at 
choice  of  the  poet,  according  to  their  place  in  the 
verse.  There  is  not  an  elision  of  Milton's  without 
precedent  in  the  dramatists  from  whom  he  learned 
to  write  blank-verse.  Milton  was  a  greater  metrist 
than  any  of  them,  except  Marlowe  and  Shake 
speare,  and  he  employed  the  elision  (or  the  slur) 
oftener  than  they  to  give  a  faint  undulation  or  re 
tardation  to  his  verse,  only  because  his  epic  form 
demanded  it  more  for  variety's  sake.  How  Milton 
would  have  read  them,  is  another  question.  He 
certainly  often  marked  them  by  an  apostrophe  in 
his  manuscripts.  He  doubtless  composed  accord 
ing  to  quantity,  so  far  as  that  is  possible  in  Eng 
lish,  and  as  Cowper  somewhat  extravagantly  says, 
"  gives  almost  as  many  proofs  of  it  in  his  '  Paradise 
Lost '  as  there  are  lines  in  the  poem."  2  But  when 
Mr.  Masson  tells  us  that 

"  Self -fed  and  self -consumed  :  if  this  fail," 

and 

"  Dwells  in  all  Heaven  charity  so  rare," 

are  "  only  nine  syllables,"  and  that  in 

1  Almost  every  combination  of  two  vowels  might  in  those  days 
be  a  diphthong  or  not,  at  will.     Milton's  practice  of  elision  was 
confirmed  and  sometimes  (perhaps)  modified  by  his  study  of  the 
Italians,  with  whose  usage  in  this  respect  he  closely  conforms. 

2  Letter  to  Rev.  W.  Bagot,  4th  January,  1791. 


MILTON  107 

"  Created  hugest  that  swim  the  ocean-stream," 

"  either  the  third  foot  must  be  read  as  an  anapcest 
or  the  word  hugest  must  be  pronounced  as  one  syl 
lable,  hug'st"  I  think  Milton  would  have  invoked 
the  soul  of  Sir  John  Cheek.  Of  course  Milton 
read  it 

"  Created  hugest  that  swim  th'  ocean-stream," 

just  as  he  wrote  (if  we  may  trust  Mr.  Masson's 
facsimile) 

"  Thus  sang  the  uncouth  swain  to  th'  oaks  and  rills," 

a  verse  in  which  both  hiatus  and  elision  occur  pre 
cisely  as  in  the  Italian  poets.1  "  Gest  that  swim  " 
would  be  rather  a  knotty  anapcest,  an  insupporta 
ble  foot  indeed !  And  why  is  even  hug'st  worse 
than  Shakespeare's 

"  Young'st  follower  of  thy  drum  "  ? 

In  the  same  way  he  says  of 

"  For  we  have  also  our  evening  and  our  morn," 

that  "  the  metre  of  this  line  is  irregular,"  and  of 
the  rapidly  fine 

"  Came  flying  and  in  mid  air  aloud  thus  cried," 

that  it  is  "  a  line  of  unusual  metre."  Why  more 
unusual  than 

"  As  being  the  contrary  to  his  high  will "  ? 

What  would  Mr.  Masson  say  to  these  three  verses 
from  Dekkar  ?  — 

1  So  Dante  :  — 

"  Ma  sapienza  e  amore  e  virtute." 
So  Donne :  — 

"  Simony  and  sodomy  in  churchmen's  lives." 


108  MILTON 

"  And  knowing  so  much,  I  muse  thou  art  so  poor  " ; 

"  I  fan  away  the  dust  flying  in  mine  eyes  "  ; 

"  Flowing  o'er  with  court  news  only  of  you  and  them." 

All  such  participles  (where  no  consonant  divided 
the  vowels)  were  normally  of  one  syllable,  permis 
sibly  of  two.1  If  Mr.  Masson  had  studied  the 
poets  who  preceded  Milton  as  he  has  studied  him, 
he  would  never  have  said  that  the  verse 

"  Not  this  rock  only  ;  his  omnipresence  fills," 

was  "  peculiar  as  having  a  distinct  syllable  of  over- 
measure."  He  retains  Milton's  spelling  of  hunderd 
without  perceiving  the  metrical  reason  for  it,  that 
e?,  £,  j9,  6,  &c.,  followed  by  I  or  r,  might  be  either 
of  two  or  of  three  syllables.  In  Marlowe  we  find 
it  both  ways  in  two  consecutive  verses :  — 

"  A  hundred  [hundered]  and  fifty  thousand  horse, 
Two  hundred  thousand  foot,  brave  men  at  arms."  2 

Mr.  Masson  is  especially  puzzled  by  verses  ending 
in  one  or  more  unaccented  syllables,  and  even  ar 
gues  in  his  Introduction  that  some  of  them  might 
be  reckoned  Alexandrines.  He  cites  some  lines  of 
Spenser  as  confirming  his  theory,  forgetting  that 
rhyme  wholly  changes  the  conditions  of  the  case 

1  Mr.  Masson  is  evidently  not  very  familiar  at  first  hand  with 
the  versification  to  which  Milton's  youthful  ear  had  been  trained, 
but  seems  to  have  learned  something  from  Abbott's  Shakespearian 
Grammar  in  the  interval  between  writing  his  notes  and  his  Intro 
duction.     Walker's  Shakespeare's  Versification  would  have  been  a 
great  help  to  him  in  default  of  original  knowledge. 

2  Milton  has  a  verse  in  Comus  where  the  e  is  elided  from  the 
word  sister  by  its  preceding  a  vowel :  — 

" Heaven  keep  my  sister !  again,  again,  and  near!  " 
This  would  have  been  impossible  before  a  consonant. 


MILTON  109 

by  throwing  the  accent  (appreciably  even  now,  but 
more  emphatically  in  Spenser's  day)  on  the  last 
syllable. 

"  A  spirit  and  judgment  equal  or  superior," 

he  calls  "  a  remarkably  anomalous  line,  consisting 
of  twelve  or  even  thirteen  syllables."  Surely  Mil 
ton's  ear  would  never  have  tolerated  a  dissyllabic 
"  spirit "  in  such  a  position.  The  word  was  then 
more  commonly  of  one  syllable,  though  it  might  be 
two,  and  was  accordingly  spelt  spreet  (still  surviv 
ing  in  sprite),  sprit,  and  even  spirt,  as  Milton  him 
self  spells  it  in  one  of  Mr.  Masson's  facsimiles.1 
Shakespeare,  in  the  verse 

"  Hath  put  a  spirit  of  youth  in  everything," 

uses  the  word  admirably  well  in  a  position  where 
it  cannot  have  a  metrical  value  of  more  than  one 
syllable,  while  it  gives  a  dancing  movement  to  the 
verse  in  keeping  with  the  sense.  Our  old  metrists 
were  careful  of  elasticity,  a  quality  which  modern 
verse  has  lost  in  proportion  as  our  language  has 
stiffened  into  uniformity  under  the  benumbing  fin 
gers  of  pedants. 

This  discussion  of  the  value  of  syllables  is  not  so 
trifling  as  it  seems.  A  great  deal  of  nonsense  has 
been  written  about  imperfect  measures  in  Shake 
speare,  and  of  the  admirable  dramatic  effect  pro 
duced  by  filling  up  the  gaps  of  missing  syllables 
with  pauses  or  prolongations  of  the  voice  in  read 
ing.  In  rapid,  abrupt,  and  passionate  dialogue 
this  is  possible,  but  in  passages  of  continuously 

1  So  spirito  and  spirto  in  Italian,  esperis  and  espirs  in  Old  French. 


110  MILTON 

level  speech  it  is  barbarously  absurd.  I  do  not  be 
lieve  that  any  of  our  old  dramatists  has  knowingly 
left  us  a  single  imperfect  verse.  Seeing  in  what  a 
haphazard  way  and  in  how  mutilated  a  form  their 
plays  have  mostly  reached  us,  we  should  attribute 
such  faults  (as  a  geologist  would  call  them)  to 
anything  rather  than  to  the  deliberate  design  of 
the  poets.  Marlowe  and  Shakespeare,  the  two  best 
metrists  among  them,  have  given  us  a  standard  by 
which  to  measure  what  licenses  they  took  in  versi 
fication,  —  the  one  in  his  translations,  the  other  in 
his  poems.  The  unmanageable  verses  in  Milton  are 
very  few,  and  all  of  them  occur  in  works  printed 
after  his  blindness  had  lessened  the  chances  of  su 
pervision  and  increased  those,  of  error.  There  are 
only  two,  indeed,  which  seem  to  me  wholly  indi 
gestible  as  they  stand.  These  are, 

"  Burnt  after  them  to  the  bottomless  pit," 

and 

"  With  them  from  bliss  to  the  bottomless  deep." 

This  certainly  looks  like  a  case  where  a  word  had 
dropped  out  or  had  been  stricken  out  by  some 
proof-reader  who  limited  the  number  of  syllables  in 
a  pentameter  verse  by  that  of  his  finger-ends.  Mr. 
Masson  notices  only  the  first  of  these  lines,  and 
says  that  to  make  it  regular  by  accenting  the  word 
bottomless  on  the  second  syllable  would  be  "  too 
horrible."  ^Certainly  not,  if  Milton  so  accented  it, 
any  more  than  blasphemous  and  twenty  more  which 
sound  oddly  to  us  now.  However  that  may  be, 
Milton  could  not  have  intended  to  close  not  only  a 
period,  but  a  paragraph  also,  with  an  unmusical 


MILTON  111 

verse,  and  in  the  only  other  passage  where  the  word 
occurs  it  is  accented  as  now  on  the  first  syllable : 

"  With  hideous  ruin  and  combustion  down 
To  bottomless  perdition,  there  to  dwell." 

As  bottom  is  a  word  which,  like  bosom  and  besom, 
may  be  monosyllabic  or  dissyllabic  according  to 
circumstances,  I  am  persuaded  that  the  last  pas 
sage  quoted  (and  all  three  refer  to  the  same  event) 
gives  us  the  word  wanting  in  the  two  others,  and 
that  Milton  wrote,  or  meant  to  write,  — 

"  Burnt  after  them  down  to  the  bottomless  pit," 

which  leaves  in  the  verse  precisely  the  kind  of  rip 
ple  that  Milton  liked  best.1  • 

Much  of  what  Mr.  Masson  says  in  his  Introduc 
tion  of  the  way  in  which  the  verses  of  Milton 
should  be  read  is  judicious  enough,  though  some  of 
the  examples  he  gives,  of  the  "  comicality  "  which 
would  ensue  from  compressing  every  verse  into  an 
exact  measure  of  ten  syllables,  are  based  on  a  sur 
prising  ignorance  of  the  laws  which  guided  our 
poets  just  before  and  during  Milton's  time  in  the 
structure  of  their  verses.  Thus  he  seems  to  think 
that  a  strict  scansion  would  require  us  in  the  verses 

"So  he  with  difficulty  and  labor  hard," 

and 

"Carnation,  purple,  azure,  or  specked  with  gold," 

1  Milton,  however,  would  not  have  balked  at  th1  bottomless  any 
more  than  Drayton  at  th1  rejected  or  Donne  at  th1  sea.  Mr.  Mas- 
son  does  not  seem  to  understand  this  elision,  for  he  corrects  z'  <A' 
midst  to  {'  the  midst,  and  takes  pains  to  mention  it  in  a  note.  He 
might  better  have  restored  the  n  in  i',  where  it  is  no  contraction, 
but  merely  indicates  the  pronunciation,  as  o'  for  of  and  on. 


112  MILTON 

to  pronounce  diffikty  and  purp\  Though  Mr. 
Masson  talks  of  "  slurs  and  elisions,"  his  ear  would 
seem  somewhat  insensible  to  their  exact  nature  or 
office.  His  diffikty  supposes  a  hiatus  where  none 
is  intended,  and  his  making  purple  of  one  syllable 
wrecks  the  whole  verse,  the  real  slur  in  the  latter 
case  being  on  azure  or.1  When  he  asks  whether 
Milton  required  "  these  pronunciations  in  his  verse," 
no  positive  answer  can  be  given,  but  I  very  much 
doubt  whether  he  would  have  thought  that  some  of 
the  lines  Mr.  Masson  cites  "  remain  perfectly  good 
Blank  Verse  even  with  the  most  leisurely  natural 
enunciation  of  the  spare  syllable,"  and  I  am  sure 
he  would  have  stared  if  told  that  "  the  number  of 
accents  "  in  a  pentameter  verse  was  "  variable."  It 
may  be  doubted  whether  elisions  and  compressions 
which  would  be  thought  in  bad  taste  or  even  vul 
gar  now  were  more  abhorrent  to  the  ears  of  Milton's 
generation  than  to  a  cultivated  Italian  would  be 
the  hearing  Dante  read  as  prose.  After  all,  what 
Mr.  Masson  says  may  be  reduced  to  the  infallible 
axiom  that  poetry  should  be  read  as  poetry. 

Mr.  Masson  seems  to  be  right  in  his  main  prin 
ciples,  but  the  examples  he  quotes  make  one  doubt 
whether  he  knows  what  a  verse  is.  For  example, 
he  thinks  it  would  be  a  "  horror,"  if  in  the  verse 

"  That  invincible  Samson  far  renowned  " 

we  should  lay  the  stress  on  the  first  syllable  of  in 
vincible.  It  is  hard  to  see  why  this  should  be 
worse  than  conventicle  or  remonstrance  or  succes- 

1  Exactly  analogous  to  that  in  treasurer  when  it  is  shortened  to 
two  syllables. 


MILTON  113 

sor  or  incompatible,  (the  three  latter  used  by  the 
correct  Daniel)  or  why  Mr.  Masson  should  clap  an 
accent  on  surface  merely  because  it  comes  at  the 
end  of  a  verse,  and  deny  it  to  invincible.  If  one 
read  the  verse  just  cited  with  those  that  go  with  it, 
he  will  find  that  the  accent  must  come  on  the  first 
syllable  of  invincible,  or  else  the  whole  passage  be 
comes  chaos.1  Should  we  refuse  to  say  obleeged 
with  Pope  because  the  fashion  has  changed  ?  From 
its  apparently  greater  freedom  in  skilful  hands, 
blank  verse  gives  more  scope  to  sciolistic  theorizing 
and  dogmatism  than  the  rhyming  pentameter  coup 
let,  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  no  verse  is  good  in  the 
one  that  would  not  be  good  in  the  other  when  han 
dled  by  a  master  like  Dryden.  Milton,  like  other 
great  poets,  wrote  some  bad  verses,  and  it  is  wiser 
to  confess  that  they  are  so  than  to  conjure  up  some 
unimaginable  reason  why  the  reader  should  accept 
them  as  the  better  for  their  badness.  Such  a  bad 
verse  is 

"  Rocks,  caves,  lakes,  fens,  bogs,  dens  and  shapes  of  death," 

which  might  be  cited  to  illustrate  Pope's 

"  And  ten  low  words  oft  creep  in  one  dull  line." 

Milton  cannot  certainly  be  taxed  with  any  par 
tiality  for  low  words.  He  rather  loved  them  tall, 
as  the  Prussian  King  loved  men  to  be  six  feet 
high  in  their  stockings,  and  fit  to  go  into  the  gren- 

1  Milton  himself  has  invisible,  for  we  cannot  suppose  him  guilty 
of  a  verse  like 

"  Shoots  invisible  virtue  even  to  the  deep," 

while,  if  read  rightly,  it  has  just  one  of  those  sweeping  elisions 
that  he  loved. 


114  MILTON 

adiers.  He  loved  them  as  much  for  their  music 
as  for  their  meaning,  —  perhaps  more.  His  style, 
therefore,  when  it  has  to  deal  with  commoner 
things,  is  apt  to  grow  a  little  cumbrous  and  un 
wieldy.  A  Persian  poet  says  that  when  the  owl 
would  boast,  he  boasts  of  catching  mice  at  the  edge 
of  a  hole.  Shakespeare  would  have  understood 
this.  Milton  would  have  made  him  talk  like  an 
eagle.  His  influence  is  not  to  be  left  out  of  ac 
count  as  partially  contributing  to  that  decline 
toward  poetic  diction  which  was  already  beginning 
ere  he  died.  If  it  would  not  be  fair  to  say  that 
he  is  the  most  artistic,  he  may  be  called  in  the 
highest  sense  the  most  scientific  of  our  poets.  If 
to  Spenser  younger  poets  have  gone  to  be  sung-to, 
they  have  sat  at  the  feet  of  Milton  to  be  taught. 
Our  language  has  no  finer  poem  than  "  Samson 
Agonistes,"  if  any  so  fine  in  the  quality  of  austere 
dignity  or  in  the  skill  with  which  the  poet's  per 
sonal  experience  is  generalized  into  a  classic  tra 
gedy. 

Gentle  as  Milton's  earlier  portraits  would  seem 
to  show  him,  he  had  in  him  by  nature,  or  bred 
jnto  him  by  fate,  something  of  the  haughty  and 
defiant  self-assertion  of  Dante  and  Michael  Angelo. 
In  no  other  English  author  is  the  man  so  large  a 
part  of  his  works.  Milton's  haughty  conception  of 
himself  enters  into  all  he  says  and  does.  Always 
the  necessity  of  this  one  man  became  that  of  the 
whole  human  race  for  the  moment.  There  were 
no  walls  so  sacred  but  must  go  to  the  ground  when 
he  wanted  elbow-room;  and  he  wanted  a  great 


MILTON  115 

deal.  Did  Mary  Powell,  the  cavalier's  daughter, 
find  the  abode  of  a  roundhead  schoolmaster  incom 
patible  and  leave  it,  forthwith  the  cry  of  the  uni 
verse  was  for  an  easier  dissolution  of  the  marriage 
covenant.  If  he  is  blind,  it  is  with  excess  of  light, 
it  is  a  divine  partiality,  an  over-shadowing  with 
angels'  wings.  Phineus  and  Teiresias  are  admitted 
among  the  prophets  because  they,  too,  had  lost 
their  sight,  and  the  blindness  of  Homer  is  of  more 
account  than  his  Iliad.  After  writing  in  rhyme 
till  he  was  past  fifty,  he  finds  it  unsuitable  for  his 
epic,  and  it  at  once  becomes  "  the  invention  of  a 
barbarous  age  to  set  off  wretched  matter  and  lame 
metre."  If  the  structure  of  his  mind  be  undra- 
matic,  why,  then,  the  English  drama  is  naught, 
learned  Jonson,  sweetest  Shakespeare,  and  the  rest 
notwithstanding,  and  he  will  compose  a  tragedy  on 
a  Greek  model  with  the  blinded  Samson  for  its 
hero,  and  he  will  compose  it  partly  in  rhyme. 
Plainly  he  belongs  to  the  intenser  kind  of  men 
whose  yesterdays  are  in  no  way  responsible  for 
their  to-morrows.  And  this  makes  him  perennially 
interesting  even  to  those  who  hate  his  politics,  de 
spise  his  Socinianism,  and  find  his  greatest  poem 
a  bore.  A  new  edition  of  his  poems  is  always 
welcome,  for,  as  he  is  really  great,  he  presents  a 
fresh  side  to  each  new  student,  and  Mr.  Masson, 
in  his  three  handsome  volumes,  has  given  us,  with 
much  that  is  superfluous  and  even  erroneous,  much 
more  that  is  a  solid  and  permanent  acquisition  to 
our  knowledge. 

It  results  from  the  almost  scornful  withdrawal 


116  MILTON 

of  Milton  into  the  fortress  of  his  absolute  person 
ality  that  no  great  poet  is  so  uniformly  self-con 
scious  as  he.  We  should  say  of  Shakespeare  that 
he  had  the  power  of  transforming  himself  into 
everything ;  of  Milton,  that  he  had  that  of  trans 
forming  everything  into  himself.  Dante  is  indi 
vidual  rather  than  self-conscious,  and  he,  the  cast- 
iron  man,  grows  pliable  as  a  field  of  grain  at  the 
breath  of  Beatrice,  and  flows  away  in  waves  of 
sunshine.  But  Milton  never  let  himself  go  for  a 
moment.  As  other  poets  are  possessed  by  their 
theme,  so  is  he  seT/^-possessed,  his  great  theme  be 
ing  John  Milton,  and  his  great  duty  that  of  inter 
preter  between  him  and  the  world.  I  say  it  with 
all  respect,  for  he  was  well  worthy  translation,  and 
it  is  out  of  Hebrew  that  the  version  is  made.  Pope 
says  he  makes  God  the  Father  reason  "  like  a 
school-divine."  The  criticism  is  witty,  but  inac 
curate.  He  makes  Deity  a  mouthpiece  for  his 
present  theology,  and  had  the  poem  been  written 
a  few  years  later,  the  Almighty  would  have  be 
come  more  heterodox.  Since  Dante,  no  one  had 
stood  on  these  visiting  terms  with  heaven. 

Now  it  is  precisely  this  audacity  of  self-reliance, 
I  suspect,  which  goes  far  toward  making  the  sub 
lime,  and  which,  falling  by  a  hair's-breadth  short 
thereof,  makes  the  ridiculous.  Puritanism  showed 
both  the  strength  and  weakness  of  its  prophetic 
nurture ;  enough  of  the  latter  to  be  scoffed  out  of 
England  by  the  very  men  it  had  conquered  in  the 
field,  enough  of  the  former  to  intrench  itself  in 
three  or  four  immortal  memories.  It  has  left  an 


MILTON  117 

abiding  mark  in  politics  and  religion,  but  its  great 
monuments  are  the  prose  of  Bunyan  and  the  verse 
of  Milton.  It  is  a  high  inspiration  to  be  the  neigh 
bor  of  great  events ;  to  have  been  a  partaker  in 
them  and  to  have  seen  noble  purposes  by  their  own 
self-confidence  become  the  very  means  of  ignoble 
ends,  if  it  do  not  wholly  depress,  may  kindle  a 
passion  of  regret  deepening  the  song  which  dares 
not  tell  the  reason  of  its  sorrow.  The  grand  loneli 
ness  of  Milton  in  his  latter  years,  while  it  makes 
him  the  most  impressive  figure  in  our  literary  his 
tory,  is  reflected  also  in  his  maturer  poems  by  a 
sublime  independence  of  human  sympathy  like  that 
with  which  mountains  fascinate  and  rebuff  us.  But 
it  is  idle  to  talk  of  the  loneliness  of  one  the  habit 
ual  companions  of  whose  mind  were  the  Past  and 
Future.  I  always  seem  to  see  him  leaning  in  his 
blindness  a  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  each,  sure 
that  the  one  will  guard  the  song  which  the  other 
had  inspired. 


DANTE1 

1872 

ON  the  banks  of  a  little  river  so  shrunken  by  the 
suns  of  summer  that  it  seems  fast  passing  into  a 
tradition,  but  so  swollen  by  the  autumnal  rains  with 
Italian  suddenness  of  passion  that  the  massy  bridge 
shudders  under  the  impatient  heap  of  waters  be 
hind  it,  stands  a  city  which,  in  its  period  of  bloom 
not  so  large  as  Boston,  may  well  rank  next  to 
Athens  in  the  history  which  teaches  come  V  uom 
*'  eterna. 

Originally  only  a  convenient  spot  in  the  valley 
where  the  fairs  of  the  neighboring  Etruscan  city  of 
Fiesole  were  held,  it  gradually  grew  from  a  huddle 
of  booths  to  a  town,  and  then  to  a  city,  which  ab 
sorbed  its  ancestral  neighbor  and  became  a  cradle 
for  the  arts,  the  letters,  the  science,  and  the  com 
merce  2  of  modern  Europe.  For  her  Cimabue 

1  The  Shadow  of  Dante,  being  an  Essay  towards  studying  Him 
self,  his  World,  and  his  Pilgrimage.     By  Maria  Francesca  Ros- 
setti. 

"  Se  Dio  te  lasci,  letter,  prender  fmtto 

Di  tua  lezione." 
Boston  :  Roberts  Brothers.     1872.     8vo,  pp.  296. 

2  The  Florentines  should  seem  to  have  invented  or  re-invented 
banks,  book-keeping  by  double-entry,  and  bills  of  exchange.    The 
last,  by  endowing  Value  with  the  gift  of  fern-seed  and  enabling  it  to 
•walk  invisible,  turned  the  flank  of  the  baronial  tariff-system  and 


DANTE  119 

wrought,  who  infused  Byzantine  formalism  with  a 
suggestion  of  nature  and  feeling ;  for  her  the  Pi- 
sani,  who  divined  at  least,  if  they  could  not  conjure 
with  it,  the  secret  of  Greek  supremacy  in  sculp 
ture  ;  for  her  the  marvellous  boy  Ghiberti  proved 
that  unity  of  composition  and  grace  of  figure  and 
drapery  were  never  beyond  the  reach  of  genius ; 1 
for  her  Brunelleschi  curved  the  dome  which  Michael 
Angelo  hung  in  air  on  St.  Peter's  ;  for  her  Giotto 
reared  the  bell-tower  graceful  as  an  Horatian  ode 
in  marble  ;  and  the  great  triumvirate  of  Italian  poe 
try,  good  sense,  and  culture  called  her  mother. 
There  is  no  modern  city  about  which  cluster  so 
many  elevating  associations,  none  in  which  the  past 
is  so  contemporary  with  us  in  unchanged  buildings 
and  undisturbed  monuments.  The  house  of  Dante 
is  still  shown  ;  children  still  receive  baptism  at  the 
font  (il  mio  bel  San  Giovanni)  where  he  was 
christened  before  the  acorn  dropped  that  was  to 
grow  into  a  keel  for  Columbus  ;  and  an  inscribed 
stone  marks  the  spot  where  he  used  to  sit  and  watch 

made  the  roads  safe  for  the  great  liberalizer,  Commerce.  This 
made  Money  omnipresent,  and  prepared  the  way  for  its  present 
omnipotence.  Fortunately  it  cannot  usurp  the  third  attribute  of 
Deity,  —  omniscience.  But  whatever  the  consequences,  this  Flo 
rentine  invention  was  at  first  nothing  but  admirable,  securing  to 
brain. its  legitimate  influence  over  brawn.  The  latter  has  begun 
its  revolt,  but  whether  it  will  succeed  better  in  its  attempt  to 
restore  mediaeval  methods  than  the  barons  in  maintaining  them 
remains  to  be  seen. 

1  Ghiberti's  designs  have  been  criticised  by  a  too  systematic 
sesthetieism,  as  confounding  the  limits  of  sculpture  and  painting. 
But  is  not  the  rilievo  precisely  the  bridge  by  which  the  one  art 
passes  over  into  the  territory  of  the  other  ?  • 


120  DANTE 

the  slow  blocks  swing  up  to  complete  the  master- 
thought  of  Arnolfo.  In  the  convent  of  St.  Mark 
hard  by  lived  and  labored  Beato  Angelico,  the 
saint  of  Christian  art,  and  Fra  Bartolommeo,  who 
taught  Raphael  dignity.  From  the  same  walls 
Savonarola  went  forth  to  his  triumphs,  short-lived 
almost  as  the  crackle  of  his  martyrdom.  The  plain 
little  chamber  of  Michael  Angelo  seems  still  to  ex 
pect  his  return ;  his  last  sketches  lie  upon  the  table, 
his  staff  leans  in  the  corner,  and  his  slippers  wait 
before  the  empty  chair.  On  one  of  the  vine-clad 
hills,  just  without  the  city  walls,  one's  feet  may 
press  the  same  stairs  that  Milton  climbed  to  visit 
Galileo.  To  an  American  there  is  something  su 
premely  impressive  in  this  cumulative  influence  of 
a  past  full  of  inspiration  and  rebuke,  something 
saddening  in  this  repeated  proof  that  moral  supre 
macy  is  the  only  one  that  leaves  monuments  and 
not  ruins  behind  it.  Time,  who  with  us  obliterates 
the  labor  and  often  the  names  of  yesterday,  seems 
here  to  have  spared  almost  the  prints  of  the  care 
piante  that  shunned  the  sordid  paths  of  worldly 
honor. 

Around  the  courtyard  of  the  great  Museum  of 
Florence  stand  statues  of  her  illustrious  dead,  her 
poets,  painters,  sculptors,  architects,  inventors,  and 
statesmen  ;  and  as  the  traveller  feels  the  ennobling 
lift  of  such  society,  and  reads  the  names  or  recog 
nizes  the  features  familiar  to  him  as  his  own  thresh 
old,  he  is  startled  to  find  Fame  as  commonplace 
here  as  Notoriety  everywhere  else,  and  that  this 
fifth-rate  city  should  have  the  privilege  thus  to 


DANTE  121 

commemorate  so  many  famous  men  her  sons,  whose 
claim  to  preeminence  the  whole  world  would  con 
cede.  Among  them  is  one  figure  before  which 
every  scholar,  every  man  who  has  been  touched  by 
the  tragedy  of  life,  lingers  with  reverential  pity. 
The  haggard  cheeks,  the  lips  clamped  together  in 
unfaltering  resolve,  the  scars  of  lifelong  battle,  and 
the  brow  whose  stern  outline  seems  the  trophy 
of  final  victory,  —  this,  at  least,  is  a  face  that  needs 
no  name  beneath  it.  This  is  he  who  among  literary 
fames  finds  only  two  that  for  growth  and  immuta 
bility  can  parallel  his  own.  The  suffrages  of  high 
est  authority  would  now  place  him  second  in  that 
company  where  he  with  proud  humility  took  the 
sixth  place.1 

Dante  (Durante,  by  contraction  Dante)  degli 
Alighieri  was  born  at  Florence  in  1265,  probably 
during  the  month  of  May.2  This  is  the  date  given 
by  Boccaccio,  who  is  generally  followed,  though  he 
makes  a  blunder  in  saying,  sedendo  Urbano  quarto 
nella  cattedra  di  San  Pietro,  for  Urban  died  in 
October,  1264.  Some,  misled  by  an  error  in  a  few 
of  the  early  manuscript  copies  of  the  Divina  Corn- 
media^  would  have  him  born  five  years  earlier,  in 
1260.  According  to  Arrivabene,3  Sansovino  was 

1  Inferno,    IV.  102. 

2  The  Nouvelle  Biographie  Ge"nlrale  gives  May  8  as  his  birth 
day.    This  is  a  mere  assumption,  for  Boccaccio  only  says  generally 
May.     The  indication  which  Dante  himself  gives  that  he  was  born 
when  the  sun  was  in  Gemini  would  give  a  range  from  about  the 
middle  of  May  to  about  the  middle  of  June,  so  that  the  8th  is 
certainly  too  early. 

3  Secolo  di  Dante,  Udine  edition  of  1828,  voL  iii.  Part  I.  p. 
578. 


122  DANTE 

the  first  to  confirm  Boccaccio's  statement  by  the 
authority  of  the  poet  himself,  basing  his  argument 
on  the  first  verse  of  the  Inferno,  — 

"  Nel  mezzo  del  cammin  di  nostra  vita  "  ; 

the  average  age  of  man  having  been  declared  by 
the  Psalmist  to  be  seventy  years,  and  the  period 
of  the  poet's  supposed  vision  being  unequivocally 
fixed  at  1300.1  Leonardo  Aretino  and  Manetti 
add  their  testimony  to  that  of  Boccaccio,  and  1265 
is  now  universally  assumed  as  the  true  date.  Vol 
taire,2  nevertheless,  places  the  poet's  birth  in  1260, 
and  jauntily  forgives  Bayle  (who,  he  says,  ecrivait 
a  Rotterdam  currente  calamo  pour  son  libraire) 
for  having  been  right,  declaring  that  he  esteems 
him  neither  more  nor  less  for  having  made  a  mis 
take  of  five  years.  Oddly  enough,  Voltaire  adopts 
this  alleged  blunder  of  five  years  on  the  next  page, 
in  saying  that  Dante  died  at  the  age  of  fifty-six, 
though  he  still  more  oddly  omits  the  undisputed  date 
of  his  death  (1321),  which  would  have  shown  Bayle 
to  be  right.  The  poet's  descent  is  said  to  have 
been  derived  from  a  younger  son  of  the  great 
Roman  family  of  the  Frangipani,  classed  by  the 
popular  rhyme  with  the  Orsini  and  Colonna  :  — 

"Colonna,  Orsini,  e  Frangipani, 
Prendono  oggi  e  pagano  domain." 

That  his  ancestors  had  been  long  established  in 
Florence  is  an  inference  from  some  expressions  of 

1  Arrivabene,  however,  is  wrong.     Boccaccio  makes  precisely 
the  same  reckoning  in  the  first  note  of  bis  Commentary  (Bocc. 
Comento,  etc.,  Firenze,  1844,  vol.  i.  pp.  32,  33). 

2  Diet.  Phil.,  art  "  Dante." 


DANTE  123 

the  poet,  and  from  their  dwelling  having  been  situ 
ated  in  the  more  ancient  part  of  the  city.  The 
most  important  fact  of  the  poet's  genealogy  is,  that 
he  was  of  mixed  race,  the  Alighieri  being  of  Teu 
tonic  origin.  Dante  was  born,  as  he  himself  tells 
us,1  when  the  sun  was  in  the  constellation  Gemini, 
and  it  has  been  absurdly  inferred,  from  a  passage 
in  the  Inferno?  that  his  horoscope  was  drawn  and 
a  great  destiny  predicted  for  him  by  his  teacher, 
Brunette  Latini.  The  Ottimo  Comento  tells  us 
that  the  Twins  are  the  house  of  Mercury,  who  in 
duces  in  men  the  faculty  of  writing,  science,  and  of 
acquiring  knowledge.  This  is  worth  mentioning 
as  characteristic  of  the  age  and  of  Dante  himself, 
with  whom  the  influence  of  the  stars  took  the  place 
of  the  old  notion  of  destiny.3  It  is  supposed,  from 
a  passage  in  Boccaccio's  life  of  Dante,  that  Ali- 
ghiero  the  father  was  still  living  when  the  poet  was 
nine  years  old.  If  so,  he  must  have  died  soon  after, 
for  Leonardo  Aretino,  who  wrote  with  original  doc 
uments  before  him,  tells  us  that  Dante  lost  his 
father  while  yet  a  child.  This  circumstance  may 
have  been  not  without  influence  in  muscularizing 
his  nature  to  that  character  of  self-reliance  which 
shows  itself  so  constantly  and  sharply  during  his 
after-life.  His  tutor  was  Brunetto  Latini,  a  very 
superior  man  (for  that  age),  says  Aretino  paren 
thetically.  Like  Alexander  Gill,  he  is  now  remem 
bered  only  as  the  schoolmaster  of  a  great  poet,  and 
that  he  did  his  duty  well  may  be  inferred  from 
Dante's  speaking  of  him  gratefully  as  one  who  by 
1  Paradiso,  XXII.  2  Canto  XV.  z  Purgatorio,  XVI. 


124  DANTE 

times  "taught  him  how  man  eternizes  himself." 
This,  and  what  Villani  says  of  his  refining  the  Tus 
can  idiom  (for  so  we  understand  laisfarli  scorti  in 
bene  parlare  J),  are  to  be  noted  as  of  probable  in 
fluence  on  the  career  of  his  pupil.  Of  the  order  of 
Dante's  studies  nothing  can  be  certainly  affirmed. 
His  biographers  send  him  to  Bologna,  Padua,  Paris, 
Naples,  and  even  Oxford.  All  are  doubtful,  Paris 
and  Oxford  most  of  all,  and  the  dates  utterly  unde 
terminable.  Yet  all  are  possible,  nay,  perhaps 
probable.  Bologna  and  Padua  we  should  be  in 
clined  to  place  before  his  exile ;  Paris  and  Oxford, 
if  at  all,  after  it.  If  no  argument  in  favor  of  Paris 
is  to  be  drawn  from  his  Pape  Satan  2  and  the  cor 
responding  paix,  paix,  Sathan,  in  the  autobiogra 
phy  of  Cellini,  nor  from  the  very  definite  allusion 
to  Doctor  Sigier,8  we  may  yet  infer  from  some  pas 
sages  in  the  Commedia  that  his  wanderings  had 
extended  even  farther  ;  4  for  it  would  not  be  hard 
to  show  that  his  comparisons  and  illustrations  from 
outward  things  are  almost  invariably  drawn  from 
actual  eyesight.  As  to  the  nature  of  his  studies, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  went  through  the 
trivium  (grammar,  dialectic,  rhetoric)  and  the 
quadrimum  (arithmetic,  music,  geometry,  and  as 
tronomy)  of  the  then  ordinary  university  course. 

1  Though  he  himself  preferred  French,  and  wrote  his  Li  Tresors 
in  that  language  for  two  reasons,  "  /'  unaperche  noi  siamo  in  Fran- 
da,  e  /'  ultra  perche  la  parlatura  francesca  e  piii  dilettevole  e  piu 
comune  che  tutti  li  altri  linguaggi."     (Proemio,  suljine.) 

2  Inferno,  Canto  VII.  8  Paradiso,  Canto  X. 

*  See  especially  Inferno,  IX.  112  et  seq. ;  XII.  120 ;  XV.  4  et 
seq. ;  XXXII.  25-30. 


DANTE  125 

To  these  he  afterward  added  painting  (or  at  least 
drawing,  —  disegnava  un  angelo  sopra  certe  tavo- 
lette  J),  theology,  and  medicine.  He  is  said  to  have 
been  the  pupil  of  Cimabue,  and  was  certainly  the 
friend  of  Giotto,  the  designs  for  some  of  whose 
frescos  at  Assisi  and  elsewhere  have  been  wrongly 
attributed  to  him,  though  we  may  safely  believe  in 
his  helpful  comment  and  suggestion.  To  prove  his 
love  of  music,  the  episode  of  Casella  were  enough, 
even  without  Boccaccio's  testimony.  The  range  of 
Dante's  study  and  acquirement  would  be  encyclo 
pedic  in  any  age,  but  at  that  time  it  was  literally 
possible  to  master  the  omne  scibile,  and  he  seems 
to  have  accomplished  it.  How  lofty  his  theory  of 
science  was,  is  plain  from  this  passage  in  the  Con- 
vito :  "  He  is  not  to  be  called  a  true  lover  of  wis 
dom  (filosofo)  who  loves  it  for  the  sake  of  gain,  as 
do  lawyers,  physicians,  and  almost  all  churchmen 
(li  religiosfy,  who  study,  not  in  order  to  know,  but 
to  acquire  riches  or  advancement,  and  who  would 
not  persevere  in  study  should  you  give  them  what 
they  desire  to  gain  by  it.  ...  And  it  may  be  said 
that  (as  true  friendship  between  men  consists  in 
each  wholly  loving  the  other)  the  true  philosopher 
loves  every  part  of  wisdom,  and  wisdom  every  part 
of  the  philosopher,  inasmuch  as  she  draws  all  to 
herself,  and  allows  no  one  of  his  thoughts  to  wan 
der  to  other  things."2  The  Convito  gives  us  a 
glance  into  Dante's  library.  We  find  Aristotle 
(whom  he  calls  the  philosopher,  the  master)  cited 

1  Vit.  Nuov.,  c.  xxxv. 

2  Tratt  III.  cap.  xi. 


126  DANTE 

seventy-six  times ;  Cicero,  eighteen  ;  Albertus  Mag 
nus,  seven ;  Boethius,  six ;  Plato  (at  second-hand), 
four;  Aquinas,  Avicenna,  Ptolemy,  the  Digest, 
Lucan,  and  Ovid,  three  each ;  Virgil,  Juvenal, 
Statius,  Seneca,  and  Horace,  twice  each ;  and  Al- 
gazzali,  Alfrogan,  Augustine,  Livy,  Orosius,  and 
Homer  (at  second-hand),  once.  Of  Greek  he 
seems  to  have  understood  little ;  of  Hebrew  and 
Arabic,  perhaps  more.  But  it  was  not  only  in  the 
closet  and  from  books  that  Dante  received  his  edu 
cation.  He  acquired,  perhaps,  the  better  part  of  it 
in  the  streets  of  Florence,  and  later,  in  those  home 
less  wanderings  which  led  him  (as  he  says)  wher 
ever  the  Italian  tongue  was  spoken.  His  were  the 
only  open  eyes  of  that  century,  and,  as  nothing  es 
caped  them,  so  there  is  nothing  that  was  not  pho 
tographed  upon  his  sensitive  brain,  to  be  afterward 
fixed  forever  in  the  Commedia.  What  Florence  was 
during  his  youth  and  manhood,  with  its  Guelphs 
and  Ghibellines,  its  nobles  and  trades,  its  Bianchi 
and  Neri,  its  kaleidoscopic  revolutions,  "  all  parties 
loving  liberty  and  doing  their  best  to  destroy  her," 
as  Voltaire  says,  it  would  be  beyond  our  province 
to  tell  even  if  we  could.  Foreshortened  as  events 
are  when  we  look  back  on  them  across  so  many 
ages,  only  the  upheavals  of  party  conflict  catching 
the  eye,  while  the  spaces  of  peace  between  sink  out 
of  the  view  of  history,  a  whole  century  seems  like 
a  mere  wild  chaos.  Yet  during  a  couple  of  such 
centuries  the  cathedrals  of  Florence,  Pisa,  and 
Siena  got  built;  Cimabue,  Giotto,  Arnolfo,  the 
Pisani,  Brunelleschi,  and  Ghiberti  gave  the  im- 


DANTE  127 

pulse  to  modern  art,  or  brought  it  in  some  of  its 
branches  to  its  culminating  point;  modern  litera 
ture  took  its  rise ;  commerce  became  a  science,  and 
the  middle  class  came  into  being.  It  was  a  time 
of  fierce  passions  and  sudden  tragedies,  of  pictur 
esque  transitions  and  contrasts.  It  found  Dante, 
shaped  him  by  every  experience  that  life  is  capa 
ble  of,  —  rank,  ease,  love,  study,  affairs,  statecraft, 
hope,  exile,  hunger,  dependence,  despair,  —  until 
he  became  endowed  with  a  sense  of  the  nothingness 
of  this  world's  goods  possible  only  to  the  rich,  and 
a  knowledge  of  man  possible  only  to  the  poor.  The 
few  well-ascertained  facts  of  Dante's  life  may  be 
briefly  stated.  In  1274  occurred  what  we  may 
call  his  spiritual  birth,  the  awakening  in  him  of 
the  imaginative  faculty,  and  of  that  profounder 
and  more,  intense  consciousness  which  springs  from 
the  recognition  of  beauty  through  the  antithesis  of 
sex.  It  was  in  that  year  that  he  first  saw  Beatrice 
Portinari.  In  1289  he  was  present  at  the  battle  of 
Campaldino,  fighting  on  the  side  of  the  Guelphs 
who  there  utterly  routed  the  Ghibellines,  and 
where,  he  says  characteristically  enough,  "  I  was 
present,  not  a  boy  in  arms,  and  where  I  felt  much 
fear,  but  in  the  end  the  greatest  pleasure,  from  the 
various  changes  of  the  fight." l  In  the  same  year 
he  assisted  at  the  siege  and  capture  of  Caprona.2 
In  1290  died  Beatrice,  married  to  Simoiie  dei 
Bardi,  precisely  when  is  uncertain,  but  before  1287, 
as  appears  by  a  mention  of  her  in  her  father's  will, 

1  Letter  of  Dante,  now  lost,  cited  by  Aretino. 
a  Inferno,  XXI.  94. 


128  DANTE 

bearing  date  January  15  of  that  year.  Dante's 
own  marriage  is  assigned  to  various  years,  ranging 
from  1291  to  1294 ;  but  the  earlier  date  seems  the 
more  probable,  as  he  was  the  father  of  seven  chil 
dren  (the  youngest,  a  daughter,  named  Beatrice) 
in  1301.  His  wife  was  Gemma  dei  Donati,  and 
through  her  Dante,  whose  family,  though  noble, 
was  of  the  lesser  nobility,  became  nearly  connected 
with  Corso  Donati,  the  head  of  a  powerful  clan  of 
the  grandi,  or  greater  nobles.  In  1293  occurred 
what  is  called  the  revolution  of  Gian  Delia  Bella, 
in  which  the  priors  of  the  trades  took  the  power 
into  their  own  hands,  and  made  nobility  a  disquali 
fication  for  office.  A  noble  was  defined  to  be  any 
one  who  counted  a  knight  among  his  ancestors,  and 
thus  the  descendant  of  Cacciaguida  was  excluded. 

Delia  Bella  was  exiled  in  1295,  but  the  nobles 
did  not  regain  their  power.  On  the  contrary,  the 
citizens,  having  all  their  own  way,  proceeded  to 
quarrel  among  themselves,  and  subdivided  into  the 
popolani  grossi  and  popolani  minuti,  or  greater 
and  lesser  trades,  —  a  distinction  of  gentility  some 
what  like  that  between  wholesale  and  retail  trades 
men.  The  grandi  continuing  turbulent,  many  of 
the  lesser  nobility,  among  them  Dante,  drew  over 
to  the  side  of  the  citizens,  and  between  1297  and 
1300  there  is  found  inscribed  in  the  book  of  the 
physicians  and  apothecaries,  Dante  d1  Aldighiero, 
degli  Aldighieri,  poeta  Florentine.1  Professor  de 
Vericour  thinks  it  necessary  to  apologize  for  this 
lapse  on  the  part  of  the  poet,  and  gravely  bids  us 
1  Balbo,  Vita  di  Dante,  Firenze,  1853,  p.  117. 


DANTE  129 

take  courage,  nor  think  that  Dante  was  ever  an 
apothecary.1  In  1300  we  find  him  elected  one  of 
the  priors  of  the  city.  In  order  to  a  perfect  mis 
understanding  of  everything  connected  with  the 
Florentine  politics  of  this  period,  one  has  only  to 
study  the  various  histories.  The  result  is  a  spec 
trum  on  the  mind's  eye,  which  looks  definite  and 
brilliant,  but  really  hinders  all  accurate  vision,  as 
if  from  too  steady  inspection  of  a  Catharine-wheel 
in  full  whirl.  A  few  words,  however,  are  necessary, 
if  only  to  make  the  confusion  palpable.  The  rival 
German  families  of  Welfs  and  Weiblingens  had 
given  their  names,  softened  into  Guelfi  and  Ghibel- 
lini,  —  from  which  Gabriel  Harvey  2  ingeniously, 
but  mistakenly,  derives  elves  and  goblins,  —  to  two 
parties  in  Northern  Italy,  representing  respectively 
the  adherents  of  the  pope  and  of  the  emperor,  but 
serving  very  well  as  rallying-points  in  all  manner  of 
intercalary  and  subsidiary  quarrels.  The  nobles,  es 
pecially  the  greater  ones,  —  perhaps  from  instinct, 
perhaps  in  part  from  hereditary  tradition,  as  being 
more  or  less  Teutonic  by  descent,  —  were  com 
monly  Ghibellines,  or  Imperialists ;  the  bourgeoisie 
were  very  commonly  Guelphs,  or  supporters  of  the 
pope,  partly  from  natural  antipathy  to  the  nobles, 
and  partly,  perhaps,  because  they  believed  them 
selves  to  be  espousing  the  more  purely  Italian  side. 
Sometimes,  however,  the  party  relation  of  nobles 
and  burghers  to  each  other  was  reversed,  but  the 
names  of  Guelph  and  Ghibelline  always  substan- 

1  Life  and  Times  of  Dante,  London,  1858,  p.  80. 
a  Notes  to  Spenser's  Shepherd's  Calendar. 


130  DANTE 

tially  represented  the  same  things.  The  family  of 
Dante  had  been  Guelphic,  and  we  have  seen  him 
already  as  a  young  man  serving  two  campaigns 
against  the  other  party.  .  But  no  immediate  ques 
tion  as  between  pope  and  emperor  seems  then  to 
have  been  pending ;  and  while  there  is  no  evidence 
that  he  was  ever  a  mere  partisan,  the  reverse  would 
be  the  inference  from  his  habits  and  character. 
Just  before  his  assumption  of  the  priorate,  how 
ever,  a  new  complication  had  arisen.  A  family 
feud,  beginning  in  the  neighboring  city  of  Pistoja, 
between  the  Cancellieri  Neri  and  Cancellieri  Bian- 
chi,1  had  extended  to  Florence,  where  the  Guelphs 
took  the  part  of  the  Neri  and  the  Ghibellines  of 
the  Bianchi.2  The  city  was  instantly  in  a  ferment 
of  street  brawls,  as  actors  in  one  of  which  some  of 
the  Medici  are  incidentally  named,  —  the  first  ap 
pearance  of  that  family  in  history.  Both  parties 
appealed  at  different  times  to  the  pope,  who  sent 
two  ambassadors,  first  a  bisnop  and  then  a  cardi 
nal.  Both  pacificators  soon  flung  out  again  in  a 
rage,  after  adding  the  new  element  of  excommuni 
cation  to  the  causes  of  confusion.  It  was  in  the 
midst  of  these  things  that  Dante  became  one  of 
the  six  priors  (June,  1300),  —  an  office  which  the 
Florentines  had  made  bimestrial  in  its  tenure,  in 
order  apparently  to  secure  at  least  six  constitutional 
chances  of  revolution  in  the  year.  He  advised 

1  See  the  story  at  length  in  Balbo,  Vita  di  Dante,  cap.  x. 

2  Thus  Foscolo.     Perhaps  it  would  be  more  accurate  to  say  that 
at  first  the  blacks  were  the  extreme  Guelphs,  and  the  whites  those 
moderate  Guelphs  inclined  to  make  terms  with  the  Ghibellines. 
The  matter  is  obscure,  and  Balbo  contradicts  himself  about  it. 


DANTE  131 

that  the  leaders  of  both  parties  should  be  banished 
to  the  frontiers,  which  was  forthwith  done  ;  the  os 
tracism  including  his  relative  Corso  Donati  among 
the  Neri,  and  his  most  intimate  friend  the  poet 
Guido  Cavalcanti  among  the  Bianchi.  They  were 
all  permitted  to  return  before  long  (though  after 
Dante's  term  of  office  was  over),  and  came  accord 
ingly,  bringing  at  least  the  Scriptural  allowance 
of  "  seven  other  "  motives  of  mischief  with  them. 
Affairs  getting  worse  (1301),  the  Neri,  with  the 
connivance  of  the  pope  (Boniface  VIII.),  entered 
into  an  arrangement  with  Charles  of  Valois,  who 
was  preparing  an  expedition  to  Italy.  Dante  was 
meanwhile  sent  on  an  embassy  to  Rome  (Septem 
ber,  1301,  according  to  Arrivabene,1  but  probably 
earlier)  by  the  Bianchi,  who  still  retained  all  the 
offices  at  Florence.  It  is  the  tradition  that  he  said 
in  setting  forth :  "  If  I  go,  who  remains  ?  and  if  I 
stay,  who  goes  ?  "  Whether  true  or  not,  the  story 
implies  what  was  certainly  true,  that  the  counsel 
and  influence  of  Dante  were  of  great  weight  with 
the  more  moderate  of  both  parties.  On  October 
31,  1301,  Charles  took  possession  of  Florence  in 
the  interest  of  the  Neri.  Dante  being  still  at 
Eome  (January  27,  1302),  sentence  of  exile  was 
pronounced  against  him  and  others,  with  a  heavy 
fine  to  be  paid  within  two  months ;  if  not  paid,  the 
entire  confiscation  of  goods,  and,  whether  paid  or 
no,  exile ;  the  charge  against  him  being  pecuniary 
malversation  in  office.  The  fine  not  paid  (as  it 

1  Secolo  di  Dante,  p.  654.     He  •would  seem  to  have  been  in 
Rome  during  the  Jubilee  of  1300.    See  Inferno,  XVIII.  28-33. 


132  DANTE 

could  not  be  without  admitting  the  justice  of  the 
charges,  which  Dante  scorned  even  to  deny),  in 
less  than  two  months  (March  10,  1302)  a  second 
sentence  was  registered,  by  which  he  with  others 
was  condemned  to  be  burned  alive  if  taken  within 
the  boundaries  of  the  republic.1  From  this  time 
the  life  of  Dante  becomes  semi-mythical,  and  for 
nearly  every  date  we  are  reduced  to  the  "  as  they 
say"  of  Herodotus.  He  became  now  necessarily 
identified  with  his  fellow-exiles  (fragments  of  all 
parties  united  by  common  wrongs  in  a  practical,  if 
not  theoretic,  Ghibellinism),  and  shared  in  their 
attempts  to  reinstate  themselves  by  force  of  arms. 
He  was  one  of  their  council  of  twelve,  but  withdrew 
from  it  on  account  of  the  unwisdom  of  their  meas 
ures.  Whether  he  was  present  at  their  futile  as 
sault  on  Florence  (July  22, 1304)  is  doubtful,  but 
probably  he  was  not.  From  the  Ottimo  Comento, 
written  at  least  in  part 2  by  a  contemporary  as  early 
as  1333,  we  learn  that  Dante  soon  separated  him 
self  from  his  companions  in  misfortune  with  mu 
tual  discontents  and  recriminations.3  During  the 
nineteen  years  of  Dante's  exile,  it  would  be  hard 
to  say  where  he  was  not.  In  certain  districts  of 
Northern  Italy  there  is  scarce  a  village  that  has 

1  That  Dante  was  not  of  the  grandi,  or  great  nobles  (what  we 
call  grandees),  as  some  of  his  biographers  have  tried  to  make  out, 
is  plain  from  this  sentence,  where  his  name  appears  low  on  the  list 
and  with  no  ornamental  prefix,  after  half  a  dozen  domini.     Bayle, 
however,  is  equally  wrong  in  supposing  his  family  to  have  been 
obscure. 

2  See  Witte,    "  Quando  e  da  chi  sia  composto  1'  Ottimo  Co- 
mento,"  etc.  (Leipsic,  1847). 

9  Ott.  Com.  Farad.  XVIL 


DANTE  '  133 

not  its  tradition  of  him,  its  sedia,  rocca,  spelonca, 
or  torre  di  Dante ;  and  what  between  the  patri 
otic  complaisance  of  some  biographers  overwilling 
to  gratify  as  many  provincial  vanities  as  possible, 
and  the  pettishness  of  others  anxious  only  to  snub 
them,  the  confusion  becomes  hopeless.1  After  his 
banishment  we  find  some  definite  trace  of  him  first 
at  Arezzo  with  Uguccione  della  Faggiuola  ;  then 
at  Siena  ;  then  at  Verona  with  the  Scaligeri.  He 
himself  says  :  "  Through  almost  all  parts  where 
this  language  [Italian]  is  spoken,  a  wanderer,  well- 
nigh  a  beggar,  I  have  gone,  showing  against  my 
will  the  wound  of  fortune.  Truly  I  have  been  a 
vessel  without  sail  or  rudder,  driven  to  diverse 
ports,  estuaries,  and  shores  by  that  hot  blast,  the 
breath  of  grievous  poverty  ;  and  I  have  shown  my 
self  to  the  eyes  of  many  who  perhaps,  through  some 
fame  of  me,  had  imagined  me  in  quite  other  guise, 
in  whose  view  not  only  was  my  person  debased,  but 
every  work  of  mine,  whether  done  or  yet  to  do, 
became  of  less  account."  2  By  the  election  of  the 
Emperor  Henry  VII.  (of  Luxemburg,  November, 

1  The  loose  way  in  which  many  Italian  scholars  write  history 
is  as  amazing  as  it  is  perplexing.     For  example :   Count  Balho's 
Life  of  Dante  was  published  originally  at  Turin,  in  1839.     In  a 
note  (lib.  i.  cap.  x.)  he  expresses  a  doubt  whether  the  date  of 
Dante's  banishment  should  not  be  1303,  and  inclines  to  think  it 
should  be.     Meanwhile,  it  seems  never  to  have  occurred  to  him 
to  employ  some  one  to  look  at  the  original  decree,  still  existing 
in  the  archives.     Stranger  still,  Le  Monnier,  reprinting  the  work 
at  Florence  in  1853,  within  a  stone's-throw  of  the  document  itself, 
and  with  full  permission  from  Ealbo  to  make  corrections,  leaves 
the  matter  just  where  it  was. 

2  Convito,  Tratt.  I.  cap.  iii. 


134  DANTE 

1308),  and  the  news  of  his  proposed  expedition 
into  Italy,  the  hopes  of  Dante  were  raised  to  the 
highest  pitch.  Henry  entered  Italy,  October,  1310, 
and  received  the  iron  crown  of  Lombardy  at  Milan, 
on  the  day  of  Epiphany,  1311.  His  movements 
being  slow,  and  his  policy  undecided,  Dante  ad 
dressed  him  that  famous  letter,  urging  him  to  crush 
first  the  "Hydra  and  Myrrha"  Florence,  as  the 
root  of  all  the  evils  of  Italy  (April  16,  1311).  To 
this  year  we  must  probably  assign  the  new  decree 
by  which  the  seigniory  of  Florence  recalled  a  por 
tion  of  the  exiles,  excepting  Dante,  however,  among 
others,  by  name.1  The  undertaking  of  Henry,  af 
ter  an  ill-directed  dawdling  of  two  years,  at  last 
ended  in  his  death  at  Buonconvento  (August  24, 
1313  ;  Carlyle  says  wrongly  September)  ;  poi 
soned,  it  was  said,  in  the  sacramental  bread,  by  a 
Dominican  friar,  bribed  thereto  by  Florence.2  The 
story  is  doubtful,  the  more  as  Dante  nowhere  al 
ludes  to  it,  as  he  certainly  would  have  done  had 
he  heard  of  it.  According  to  Balbo,  Dante  spent 
the  time  from  August,  1313,  to  November,  1314, 
in  Pisa  and  Lucca,  and  then  took  refuge  at  Ve 
rona,  with  Can  Grande  della  Scala  (whom  Voltaire 
calls,  drolly  enough,  le  grand-can  de  Verone,  as  if 
he  had  been  a  Tartar),  where  he  remained  till 
1318.  Foscolo  with  equal  positiveness  sends  him, 

1  Macchiavelli  is  the  authority  for  this,  and  is  carelessly  cited 
in  the  preface  to  the  Udine  edition  of   the  Codex  Bartolinianus 
as  placing   it  in    1312.     Macchiavelli  does   no  such   thing,    but 
expressly  implies  an  earlier  date,  perhaps  1310.     (See  Macch.  Op. 
ed.  Baretti,  London,  1772,  vol.  i.  p.  60.) 

2  See  Carlyle's  Frederic,  vol.  i.  p.  147. 


DANTE  135 

immediately  after  the  death  of  Henry,  to  Guido  da 
Polenta1  at  Ravenna,  and  makes  him  join  Can 
Grande  only  after  the  latter  became  captain  of  the 
Ghibelline  league  in  December,  1318.  In  1316 
the  government  of  Florence  set  forth  a  new  decree 
allowing  the  exiles  to  return  on  conditions  of  fine 
and  penance.  Dante  rejected  the  offer  (by  accept 
ing  which  his  guilt  would  have  been  admitted),  in 
a  letter  still  hot,  after  these  five  centuries,  with  in 
dignant  scorn.  "  Is  this  then  the  glorious  return 
of  Dante  Alighieri  to  his  country  after  nearly  three 
lustres  of  suffering  and  exile  ?  Did  an  innocence, 
patent  to  all,  merit  this?  —  this,  the  perpetual 
sweat  and  toil  of  study?  Far  from  a  man,  the 
housemate  of  philosophy,  be  so  rash  and  earthen- 
hearted  a  humility  as  to  allow  himself  to  be  offered 
up  bound  like  a  school-boy  or  a  criminal!  Far 
from  a  man,  the  preacher  of  justice,  to  pay  those 
who  have  done  him  wrong  as  for  a  favor  !  This  is 
not  the  way  of  returning  to  my  country ;  but  if 
another  can  be  found  that  shall  not  derogate  from 
the  fame  and  honor  of  Dante,  that  I  will  enter  on 
with  no  lagging  steps.  For  if  by  none  such  Flor 
ence  may  be  entered,  by  me  then  never  !  Can  I 
not  everywhere  behold  the  mirrors  of  the  sun  and 
stars  ?  speculate  on  sweetest  truths  under  any  sky 
without  first  giving  myself  up  inglorious,  nay,  ig- 

1  A  mistake,  for  Guido  did  not  become  lord  of  Ravenna  till 
several  years  later.  But  Boccaccio  also  assigns  1313  as  the  date 
of  Dante's  withdrawal  to  that  city,  and  his  first  protector  may 
have  been  one  of  the  other  Polentani  to  whom  Guido  (surnamed 
Novello,  or  the  Younger ;  his  grandfather  having  borne  the  same 
name)  succeeded. 


136  DANTE 

nominious,  to  the  populace  and  city  of  Florence  ? 
Nor  shall  I  want  for  bread."  Dionisi  puts  the 
date  of  this  letter  in  1315.1  He  is  certainly  wrong, 
for  the  decree  is  dated  December  11,  1316.  Fos- 
colo  places  it  in  1316,  Troya  early  in  1317,  and 
both  may  be  right,  as  the  year  began  March  25. 
Whatever  the  date  of  Dante's  visit  to  Voltaire's 
great  Khan2  of  Verona,  or  the  length  of  his  stay 
with  him,  may  have  been,  it  is  certain  that  he  was 
in  Ravenna  in  1320,  and  that,  on  his  return  thither 
from  an  embassy  to  Venice  (concerning  which  a 
curious  letter,  forged  probably  by  Doni,  is  extant), 
he  died  on  September  14,  1321  (13th,  according 
to  others).  He  was  buried  at  Eavenna  under  a 
monument  built  by  his  friend,  Guido  Novello.3 

1  Under  this  date  (1315)  a  fourth  condemnatio  against  Dante  is 
mentioned  facta  in  anno  1315  de  mense  Octobris  per  D.  Rainerium, 
D.  Zacharii  de  Urbeveteri,  dim  et  tune  vicarium  regium  civitatis 
Flarentice,  etc.  It  is  found  recited  in  the  decree  under  which  in 
1342  Jacopo  di  Dante  redeemed  a  portion  of  his  father's  property, 
to  wit :  Una  possessione  cum  vinea  et  cum  domibus  super  ea,  com- 
bustis  et  non  combustis,  posita  in  populo  S.  Miniatis  de  Pagnola. 
In  the  domibus  combustis  we  see  the  blackened  traces  of  Dante's 
kinsman  by  marriage,  Corso  Donati,  who  plundered  and  burnt 
the  houses  of  the  exiled  Bianchi,  during  the  occupation  of  the  city 
by  Charles  of  Valois.  (See  De  Romanis,  notes  on  Tiraboschi's 
Life  of  Dante,  in  the  Florence  ed.  of  1830,  vol.  v.  p.  119.) 

3  Voltaire's  blunder  has  been  made  part  of  a  serious  theory  by 
Mons.  E.  Aroux,  who  gravely  assures  us  that,  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  Tartar  was  only  a  cryptonym  by  which  heretics  knew  each 
other,  and  adds :  H  n*y  a  done  pas  trop  a  s'ftonner  des  noms  bi- 
zarres  de  Mastino  et  de  Cane  donnes  a  ces  Delia  Scala.  (Dante, 
herttique,  revolutionnaire,  et  socialiste,  Paris,  1854,  pp.  118-120.) 

3  If  no  monument  at  all  was  built  by  Guido,  as  is  asserted  by 
Balbo  (Vita,  i.  lib.  ii.  cap.  xvii.),  whom  De  Yericour  copies 
without  question,  we  are  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  preservation 


DANTE  137 

Dante  is  said  to  have  dictated  the  following  in 
scription  for  it  on  his  death-bed :  — 

JVKA  MONAJRCHLE  SvPEKOS  PflLEGETHONTA  LACVSQVB 
LVSTRANDO  CECINI  VOLVERVNT  FATA  QVOVSQVE 
SED  QVIA  PARS  CESSIT  MELIORIBVS  HOSPITA  CASTKIS 
AVCTOREMQVE  SVVM  PETIIT  FELICIOR  ASTRIS 

Hie  CLAVDOR  DANTES  PATRUS  EXTORRIS  AB  ORIS 

QVEM  OENVIT  PARVI  FLORENTIA  MATER  AMORIS. 

Of  which  this  rude  paraphrase  may  serve  as  a 
translation :  — 

The  rights  of  Monarchy,  the  Heavens,  the  Stream  of  Fire,  the  Pit, 
In  vision  seen,  I  sang  as  far  as  to  the  Fates  seemed  fit ; 
But  since  my  soul,  an  alien  here,  hath  flown  to  nobler  •wars, 
And,  happier  now,  hath  gone  to  seek  its  Maker  'mid  the  stars, 
Here  am  I  Dante  shut,  exiled  from  the  ancestral  shore, 
Whom  Florence,  the  of  all  least-loving  mother,  bore.1 

of  the  original  epitaph  replaced  by  Bernardo  Bembo  when  he  built 
the  new  tomb,  in  1483.  Bembo's  own  inscription  implies  an  al 
ready  existing  monument,  and,  if  in  disparaging  terms,  yet  epi- 
taphial  Latin  verses  are  not  to  be  taken  too  literally,  considering 
the  exigencies  of  that  branch  of  literary  ingenuity.  The  doggerel 
Latin  has  been  thought  by  some  unworthy  of  Dante,  as  Shake 
speare's  doggerel  English  epitaph  has  been  thought  unworthy  of 
him.  In  both  cases  the  rudeness  of  the  verses  seems  to  us  a  proof 
of  authenticity.  An  enlightened  posterity  with  unlimited  super 
latives  at  command,  and  in  an  age  when  stone-cutting  was  cheap, 
would  have  aimed  at  something  more  befitting  the  occasion.  It 
is  certain,  at  least  in  Dante's  case,  that  Bembo  would  never  have 
inserted  in  the  very  first  words  an  allusion  to  the  De  Monarchia, 
a  book  long  before  condemned  as  heretical. 

1  We  have  translated  lacusque  by  "the  Pit,"  as  being  the  near 
est  English  correlative.  Dante  probably  meant  by  it  the  several 
circles  of  his  Hell,  narrowing,  one  beneath  the  other,  to  the  cen 
tre.  As  a  curious  specimen  of  English  we  subjoin  Professor  de 
Vericour's  translation  :  "I  have  sang  the  rights  of  monarchy ;  I 
have  sang,  in  exploring  them,  the  abode  of  God,  the  Phlegethon 
and  the  impure  lakes,  as  long  as  destinies  have  permitted.  But 
as  the  part  of  myself,  which  was  only  passing,  returns  to  better 
fields,  and  happier,  returned  to  his  Maker,  I,  Dante,  exiled  from 


138  DANTE 

If  these  be  not  the  words  of  Dante,  what  is  internal 
evidence  worth  ?  The  indomitably  self-reliant  man, 
loyal  first  of  all  to  his  most  unpopular  convictions 
(his  very  host,  Guido,  being  a  Guelph),  puts  his 
Ghibellinism  (Jura  monarchic^)  in  the  front.  The 
man  whose  whole  life,  like  that  of  selected  souls 
always,  had  been  a  warfare,  calls  heaven  another 
camp,  —  a  better  one,  thank  God  !  The  wanderer 
of  so  many  years  speaks  of  his  soul  as  a  guest,  — 
glad  to  be  gone,  doubtless.  The  exile,  whose  sharp 
est  reproaches  of  Florence  are  always  those  of  an 
outraged  lover,  finds  it  bitter  that  even  his  uncon 
scious  bones  should  lie  in  alien  soil. 

Giovanni  Villani,  the  earliest  authority,  and  a 
contemporary,  thus  sketches  him  :  "  This  man  was 
a  great  scholar  in  almost  every  science,  though  a 
layman ;  was  a  most  excellent  poet,  philosopher, 
and  rhetorician  ;  perfect,  as  well  in  composing  and 
versifying  as  in  haranguing  ;  a  most  noble  speaker. 
.  .  .  This  Dante,  on  account  of  his  learning,  was  a 
little  haughty,  and  shy,  and  disdainful,  and  like  a 
philosopher  almost  ungracious,  knew  not  well  how 
to  deal  with  unlettered  folk."  Benvenuto  da  Imola 
tells  us  that  he  was  very  abstracted,  as  we  may  well 
believe  of  a  man  who  carried  the  Commedia  in  his 
brain.  Boccaccio  paints  him  in  this  wise  :  "  Our 
poet  was  of  middle  height ;  his  face  was  long,  his 
nose  aquiline,  his  jaw  large,  and  the  lower  lip  pro 
truding  somewhat  beyond  the  upper ;  a  little  stoop- 

the  regions  of  fatherland,  I  am  laid  here,  I,  to  whom  Florence 
gave  birth,  a  mother  who  experienced  but  a  feeble  love."  (The 
I4fe  and  Times  of  Dante,  London,  1858,  p.  208.) 


DANTE  139 

ing  in  the  shoulders ;  his  eyes  rather  large  than 
small ;  dark  of  complexion ;  his  hair  and  beard 
thick,  crisp,  and  black;  and  his  countenance  al 
ways  sad  and  thoughtful.  His  garments  were  al 
ways  dignified ;  the  style  such  as  suited  ripeness  of 
years ;  his  gait  was  grave  and  gentlemanlike  ;  and 
his  bearing,  whether  public  or  private,  wonderfully 
composed  and  polished.  In  meat  and  drink  he  was 
most  temperate,  nor  was  ever  any  more  zealous 
in  study  or  whatever  other  pursuit.  Seldom  spake 
he,  save  when  spoken  to,  though  a  most  eloquent 
person.  In  his  youth  he  delighted  especially  in 
music  and  singing,  and  was  intimate  with  almost 
all  the  singers  and  musicians  of  his  day.  He  was 
much  inclined  to  solitude,  and  familiar  with  few, 
and  most  assiduous  in  study  as  far  as  he  could  find 
time  for  it.  Dante  was  also  of  marvellous  capacity 
and  the  most  tenacious  memory."  Various  anec 
dotes  of  him  are  related  by  Boccaccio,  Sacchetti, 
and  others,  none  of  them  verisimilar,  and  some  of 
them  at  least  fifteen  centuries  old  when  revamped. 
Most  of  them  are  neither  veri  nor  ben  trovati. 
One  clear  glimpse  we  get  of  him  from  the  Ottimo 
Comento,  the  author  of  which  says : l  "  I,  the  writer, 
heard  Dante  say  that  never  a  rhyme  had  led  him  to 
say  other  than  he  would,  but  that  many  a  time  and 
oft  (molte  e  spesse  volte)  he  had  made  words  say 
for  him  what  they  were  not  wont  to  express  for 
other  poets."  That  is  the  only  sincere  glimpse 
we  get  of  the  living,  breathing,  word-compelling 
Dante. 

1  Inferno,  X.  85. 


140  DANTE 

Looked  at  outwardly,  the  life  of  Dante  seems  to 
have  been  an  utter  and  disastrous  failure.  What 
its  inward  satisfactions  must  have  been,  we,  with 
the  Paradiso  open  before  us,  can  form  some  faint 
conception.  To  him,  longing  with  an  intensity 
which  only  the  word  Dantesque  will  express  to 
realize  an  ideal  upon  earth,  and  continually  baffled 
and  misunderstood,  the  far  greater  part  of  his  ma 
ture  life  must  have  been  labor  and  sorrow.  We 
can  see  how  essential  all  that  sad  experience  was  to 
him,  can  understand  why  all  the  fairy  stories  hide 
the  luck  in  the  ugly  black  casket ;  but  to  him,  then 
and  there,  how  seemed  it  ? 

Thou  shalt  relinquish  everything  of  thee, 
Beloved  most  dearly  ;  this  that  arrow  is 
Shot  from  the  bow  of  exile  first  of  all ; 
And  thou  shalt  prove  how  salt  a  savor  hath 
The  bread  of  others,  and  how  hard  a  path 
To  climb  and  to  descend  the  stranger's  stairs ! 1 

Come  sa  di  sale.  Who  never  wet  his  bread  with 
tears,  says  Goethe,  knows  ye  not,  ye  heavenly 
powers !  Our  nineteenth  century  made  an  idol  of 
the  noble  lord  who  broke  his  heart  in  verse  once 
every  six  months,  but  the  fourteenth  was  lucky 
enough  to  produce  and  not  to  make  an  idol  of  that 
rarest  earthly  phenomenon,  a  man  of  genius  who 
could  hold  heartbreak  at  bay  for  twenty  years,  and 
would  not  let  himself  die  till  he  had  done  his  task. 
At  the  end  of  the  Vita  Nuova,  his  first  work, 
Dante  wrote  down  that  remarkable  aspiration  that 
God  would  take  him  to  himself  after  he  had  written 

1  Paradiso,  XVII. 


DANTE  141 

of  Beatrice  such  things  as  were  never  yet  written  of 
woman.  It  was  literally  fulfilled  when  the  Corn- 
media  was  finished  twenty-five  years  later. 

Scarce  was  Dante  at  rest  in  his  grave  when  Italy 
felt  instinctively  that  this  was  her  great  man.  Boc 
caccio  tells  us  that  in  1329 1  Cardinal  Poggetto  (du 
Poiet)  caused  Dante's  treatise  De  Monarchia  to  be 
publicly  burned  at  Bologna,  and  proposed  further  to 
dig  up  and  burn  the  bones  of  the  poet  at  Ravenna, 
as  having  been  a  heretic ;  but  so  much  opposition 
was  roused  that  he  thought  better  of  it.  Yet  this 
was  during  the  pontificate  of  the  Frenchman,  John 
XXII.,  whose  damnation  the  poet  himself  seems  to 
prophesy,2  and  against  whose  election  he  had  en 
deavored  to  persuade  the  cardinals,  in  a  vehement 
letter.  In  1350  the  republic  of  Florence  voted  the 
sum  of  ten  golden  florins  to  be  paid  by  the  hands 
of  Messer  Giovanni  Boccaccio  to  Dante's  daughter 
Beatrice,  a  nun  in  the  convent  of  Santa  Chiara  at 
Ravenna.  In  1396  Florence  voted  a  monument, 
and  begged  in  vain  for  the  metaphorical  ashes  of 
the  man  of  whom  she  had  threatened  to  make  lit 
eral  cinders  if  she  could  catch  him  alive.  In  1429  3 
she  begged  again,  but  Ravenna,  a  dead  city,  was 
tenacious  of  the  dead  poet.  In  1519  Michael  An' 

1  He  says  after  the  return  of   Louis  of  Bavaria  to  Germany 
•which  took  place  in  that  year.     The  De  Monarchia  was  afterward 
condemned  by  the  Council  of  Trent. 

2  Inferno,  XI.  50. 

8  See  the  letter  in  Gaye,  Carteggio  inedito  d1  artisti  (Firenze, 
1839),  vol.  i.  p.  123. 


142  DANTE 

gelo  would  have  built  the  monument,  but  Leo  X. 
refused  to  allow  the  sacred  dust  to  be  removed. 
Finally,  in  1829,  five  hundred  and  eight  years  after 
the  death  of  Dante,  Florence  got  a  cenotaph  fairly 
built  in  Santa  Croce  (by  Ricei),  ugly  beyond  even 
the  usual  lot  of  such,  with  three  colossal  figures  on 
it,  Dante  in  the  middle,  with  Italy  on  one  side  and 
Poesy  on  the  other.  The  tomb  at  Ravenna,  built 
originally  in  1483,  by  the  father  of  Cardinal 
Bembo,  was  restored  by  Cardinal  Corsi  in  1692, 
and  finally  rebuilt  in  its  present  form  by  Cardinal 
Gonzaga,  in  1780,  all  three  of  whom  commemo 
rated  themselves  in  Latin  inscriptions.  It  is  a  little 
shrine  covered  with  a  dome,  not  unlike  the  tomb  of 
a  Mohammedan  saint,  and  is  now  the  chief  magnet 
which  draws  foreigners  and  their  gold  to  Ravenna. 
The  valet  de  place  says  that  Dante  is  not  buried 
under  it,  but  beneath  the  pavement  of  the  street  in 
front  of  it,  where  also,  he  says,  he  saw  my  Lord 
Byron  kneel  and  weep.  Like  everything  in  Ra 
venna,  it  is  dirty  and  neglected. 

In  1373  (August  9)  Florence  instituted  a  chair 
of  the  Divina  Commedia,  and  Boccaccio  was  named 
first  professor.  He  accordingly  began  his  lectures 
on  Sunday,  October  3,  following,  but  his  comment 
was  broken  off  abruptly  at  the  17th  verse  of  the 
17th  canto  of  the  Inferno  by  the  illness  which 
ended  in  his  death,  December  21, 1375.  Among  his 
successors  were  Filippo  Villani  and  Filelfo.  Bo 
logna  was  the  first  to  follow  the  example  of  Flor 
ence,  Benvenuto  da  Imola  having  begun  his  lectures, 
according  to  Tiraboschi,  so  early  as  1375.  Chairs 


DANTE  143 

were  established  also  at  Pisa,  Venice,  Piacenza,  and 
Milan  before  the  close  of  the  century.  The  lec 
tures  were  delivered  in  the  churches  and  on  feast- 
days,  which  shows  their  popular  character.  Balbo 
reckons  (but  this,  though  probable,  is  guess-work) 
that  the  MS.  copies  of  the  Divina  Commedia 
made  during  the  fourteenth  century,  and  now  exist 
ing  in  the  libraries  of  Europe,  are  more  numerous 
than  those  of  all  other  works,  ancient  and  modern, 
made  during  the  same  period.  Between  the  inven 
tion  of  printing  and  the  year  1500  more  than 
twenty  editions  were  published  in  Italy,  the  earliest 
in  1472.  During  the  sixteenth  century  there  were 
forty  editions  ;  during  the  seventeenth,  —  a  period, 
for  Italy,  of  sceptical  dilettantism,  —  only  three  ; 
during  the  eighteenth,  thirty-four;  and  already, 
during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth,  at  least 
eighty.  The  first  translation  was  into  Catalan,  in 
1428.1  M.  St.  Kene  Taillandier  says  that  the 
Commedia  was  condemned  by  the  inquisition  in 
Spain  ;  but  this  seems  too  general  a  statement,  for, 
according  to  Foscolo,2  it  was  the  commentary  of 
Landino  and  Vellutello,  and  a  few  verses  in  the 
Inferno  and  Paradiso,  which  were  condemned. 
The  first  French  translation  was  that  of  Grangier, 
1596,  but  the  study  of  Dante  struck  no  root  there 
till  the  present  century.  Kivarol,  who  translated 
the  Inferno  in  1783,  was  the  first  Frenchman  who 
divined  the  wonderful  force  and  vitality  of  the 

1  St.  Rene1  Taillandier,  in  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  December 
1,  1856,  says  into  Spanish. 

2  Dante,  vol.  iv.  p.  116. 


144  DANTE 

Oommedia.1  The  expressions  of  Voltaire  repre 
sent  very  well  the  average  opinion  of  cultivated 
persons  in  respect  of  Dante  in  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  He  says :  "  The  Italians  call 
him  divine ;  but  it  is  a  hidden  divinity ;  few  peo 
ple  understand  his  oracles.  He  has  commentators, 
which,  perhaps,  is  another  reason  for  his  not  being 
understood.  His  reputation  will  go  on  increasing, 
because  scarce  anybody  reads  him." 2  To  Father 
Bettinelli  he  writes :  "I  estimate  highly  the  cour 
age  with  which  you  have  dared  to  say  that  Dante 
was  a  madman  and  his  work  a  monster."  But  he 
adds,  what  shows  that  Dante  had  his  admirers  even 
in  that  flippant  century :  "  There  are  found  among 
us,  and  in  the  eighteenth  century,  people  who  strive 
to  admire  imaginations  so  stupidly  extravagant 
and  barbarous." 3  Elsewhere  he  says  that  the 
Oommedia  was  "  an  odd  poem,  but  gleaming  with 
natural  beauties,  a  work  in  which  the  author  rose 
in  parts  above  the  bad  taste  of  his  age  and  his  sub 
ject,  and  full  of  passages  written  as  purely  as  if 
they  had  been  of  the  time  of  Ariosto  and  Tasso."  4 
It  is  curious  to  see  this  antipathetic  fascination 
which  Dante  exercised  over  a  nature  so  opposite  to 
his  own. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  century  Chateaubriand 
speaks  of  Dante  with  vague  commendation,  evi 
dently  from  a  very  superficial  acquaintance,  and 

1  Ste.  Beuve,  Causeries  du  Lundi,  tome  xi.  p.  169. 

2  Diet.  Phil,  art.  "Dante." 

8  Corresp.  gen.,  CEuvres,  tome  Ivii.  pp.  80,  81. 

4  Essai  sur  les  mceurs,  CEuvres,  tome  xvii.  pp.  371,  372. 


DANTE  145 

that  only  with  the  Inferno,  probably  from  Rivarol's 
version.1  Since  then  there  have  been  four  or  five 
French  versions  in  prose  or  verse,  including  one  by 
Lamennais.  But  the  austerity  of  Dante  will  not 
condescend  to  the  conventional  elegance  which 
makes  the  charm  of  French,  and  the  most  virile  of 
poets  cannot  be  adequately  rendered  in  the  most 
feminine  of  languages.  .  Yet  in  the  works  of  Fau- 
riel,  Ozanam,  Ampere,  and  Villemain,  France  has 
given  a  greater  impulse  to  the  study  of  Dante  than 
any  other  country  except  Germany.  Into  Germany 
the  Commedia  penetrated  later.  How  utterly 
Dante  was  unknown  there  in  the  sixteenth  century 
is  plain  from  a  passage  in  the  "  Vanity  of  the  Arts 
and  Sciences  "  of  Cornelius  Agrippa,  where  he  is 
spoken  of  among  the  authors  of  lascivious  stories  : 
"  There  have  been  many  of  these  historical  pandars, 
of  which  some  of  obscure  fame,  as  JEneas  Sylvius, 
Dantes,  and  Petrarch,  Boccace,  Pontanus,"  etc.2 
The  first  German  translation  was  that  of  Bachen- 
schwanz  (1767-69).  Versions  by  Kannegiesser, 
Streckfuss,  Kopisch,  and  Prince  John  of  Saxony, 
followed.  Goethe  seems  never  to  have  given  that 
attention  to  Dante  which  his  ever-alert  intelligence 
might  have  been  expected  to  bestow  on  so  impos 
ing  a  moral  and  sesthetic  phenomenon.  Unless  the 
conclusion  of  the  second  part  of  "  Faust  "  be  an  in 
spiration  of  the  Paradiso,  we  remember  no  ade 
quate  word  from  him  on  this  theme.  His  remarks 
on  one  of  the  German  translations  are  brief,  dry, 

1  Ginie.  du  Christianisme,  cap.  iv. 

2  Ed.  Lond.  1684,  p.  199. 


146  DANTE 

and  without  that  breadth  which  comes  only  of 
thorough  knowledge  and  sympathy.  But  German 
scholarship  and  constructive  criticism,  through 
Witte,  Kopisch,  Wegele,  Ruth,  and  others,  have 
been  of  preeminent  service  in  deepening  the  un 
derstanding  and  facilitating  the  study  of  the  poet. 
In  England  the  first  recognition  of  Dante  is  by 
Chaucer  in  the  "  Hugelin  of  Pisa  "  of  the  "  Monkes 
Tale," l  and  an  imitation  of  the  opening  verses  of 
the  third  canto  of  the  Inferno  ("  Assembly  of 
Foules  ").  In  1417  Giovanni  da  Serravalle,  bishop 
of  Fermo,  completed  a  Latin  prose  translation  of 
the  Commedia,  a  copy  of  which,  as  he  made  it  at 
the  request  of  two  English  bishops  whom  he  met  at 
the  council  of  Constance,  was  doubtless  sent  to 
England.  Later  we  find  Dante  now  and  then 
mentioned,  but  evidently  from  hearsay  only,2  till 
the  time  of  Spenser,  who,  like  Milton  fifty  years 
later,  shows  that  he  had  read  his  works  closely. 
Thenceforward  for  more  than  a  century  Dante  be 
came  a  mere  name,  used  without  meaning  by  liter 
ary  sciolists.  Lord  Chesterfield  echoes  Voltaire, 
and  Dr.  Drake  in  his  "  Literary  Hours  "  3  could 

1  It  is  worth  notice,  as  a  proof  of  Chaucer's  critical  judgment, 
that  he  calls  Dante  "the  great  poet  of  Itaille,"  while   in  the 
"  Clerke's  Tale  "  he  speaks  of  Petrarch  as  a  "worthy  clerk,"  as 
"  the  laureat  poete  "  (alluding  to  the  somewhat  sentimental  cere 
mony  at  Rome),  and  says  that  his 

"  Rhetorike  sweete 
Enlumined  all  Itaille  of  poetry." 

2  It  is  probable  thatSackville  may  have  read  the  Inferno,  and  it 
is  certain  that  Sir  John  Harrington  had.     See  the  preface  to  his 
translation  of  the  Orlando  Furioso. 

8  Second  edition,  1800. 


DANTE  147 

speak  of  Darwin's  "  Botanic  Garden  "  as  showing 
the  "  wild  and  terrible  sublimity  of  Dante  "  !  The 
first  complete  English  translation  was  by  Boyd,  — 
of  the  Inferno  in  1785,  of  the  whole  poem  in  1802. 
There  have  been  eight  other  complete  translations, 
beginning  with  Gary's  in  1814,  six  since  1850,  be 
side  several  of  the  Inferno  singly.  Of  these  that 
of  Longfellow  is  the  best.  It  is  only  within  the 
last  twenty  years,  however,  that  the  study  of 
Dante,  in  any  true  sense,  became  at  all  general. 
Even  Coleridge  seems  to  have  been  familiar  only 
with  the  Inferno.  In  America  Professor  Ticknor 
was  the  first  to  devote  a  special  course  of  illustra 
tive  lectures  to  Dante  ;  he  was  followed  by  Long 
fellow,  whose  lectures,  illustrated  by  admirable 
translations,  are  remembered  with  grateful  pleasure 
by  many  who  were  thus  led  to  learn  the  full  signi 
ficance  of  the  great  Christian  poet.  A  translation 
of  the  Inferno  into  quatrains  by  T.  W.  Parsons 
ranks  with  the  best  for  spirit,  faithfulness,  and  ele 
gance.  In  Denmark  and  Russia  translations  of  the 
Inferno  have  been  published,  beside  separate  vol 
umes  of  comment  and  illustration.  We  have  thus 
sketched  the  steady  growth  of  Dante's  fame  and 
influence  to  a  universality  unparalleled  except  in 
the  case  of  Shakespeare,  perhaps  more  remarkable 
if  we  consider  the  abstruse  and  mystical  nature  of 
his  poetry.  It  is  to  be  noted  as  characteristic  that 
the  veneration  of  Dantophilists  for  their  master  is 
that  of  disciples  for  their  saint.  Perhaps  no  other 
man  could  have  called  forth  such  an  expression  as 
that  of  Ruskin,  that  "  the  central  man  of  all  the 


148  DANTE 

world,  as  representing  in  perfect  balance  the  im 
aginative,  moral,  and  intellectual  faculties,  all  at 
their  highest,  is  Dante." 

The  first  remark  to  be  made  upon  the  writings 
of  Dante  is  that  they  are  all  (with  the  possible 
exception  of  the  treatise  De  Vulgarl  Eloquio) 
autobiographic,  and  that  all  of  them,  including 
that,  are  parts  of  a  mutually  related  system,  of 
which  the  central  point  is  the  individuality  and 
experience  of  the  poet.  In  the  Vita  Nuova  he 
recounts  the  story  of  his  love  for  Beatrice  Porti- 
nari,  showing  how  his  grief  for  her  loss  turned  his 
thoughts  first  inward  upon  his  own  consciousness, 
and,  failing  all  help  there,  gradually  upward 
through  philosophy  to  religion,  and  so  from  a  world 
of  shadows  to  one  of  eternal  substances.  It  traces 
with  exquisite  unconsciousness  the  gradual  but  cer 
tain  steps  by  which  memory  and  imagination  tran 
substantiated  the  woman  of  flesh  and  blood  into 
a  holy  ideal,  combining  in  one  radiant  symbol  of 
sorrow  and  hope  that  faith  which  is  the  instinctive 
refuge  of  unavailing  regret,  that  grace  of  God 
which  higher  natures  learn  to  find  in  the  trial 
which  passeth  all  understanding,  and  that  perfect 
womanhood,  the  dream  of  youth  and  the  memory 
of  maturity,  which  beckons  toward  the  forever  un 
attainable.  As  a  contribution  to  the  physiology  of 
genius,  no  other  book  is  to  be  compared  with  the 
Vita  Nuova.  It  is  more  important  to  the  under 
standing  of  Dante  as  a  poet  than  any  other  of  his 
works.  It  shows  him  (and  that  in  the  midst  of 
affairs  demanding  practical  ability  and  presence 


DANTE  149 

of  mind)  capable  of  a  depth  of  contemplative  ab 
straction,  equalling  that  of  a  Soofi  who  has  passed 
the  fourth  step  of  initiation.  It  enables  us  in 
some  sort  to  see  how,  from  being  the  slave  of  his 
imaginative  faculty,  he  rose  by  self-culture  and 
force  of  will  to  that  mastery  of  it  which  is  art. 
We  comprehend  the  Commedia  better  when  we 
know  that  Dante  could  be  an  active,  clear-headed 
politician  and  a  mystic  at  the  same  time.  Various 
dates  have  been  assigned  to  the  composition  of 
the  Vita  Nuova.  The  earliest  limit  is  fixed  by 
the  death  of  Beatrice  in  1290  (though  some  of  the 
poems  are  of  even  earlier  date),  and  the  book  is 
commonly  assumed  to  have  been  finished  by  1295 ; 
Foscolo  says  1294.  But  Professor  Karl  "Witte, 
a  high  authority,  extends  the  term  as  far  as  1300.1 
The  title  of  the  book  also,  Vita  Nuova,  has  been 
diversely  interpreted.  Mr.  Garrow,  who  published 
an  English  version  of  it  at  Florence  in  1846,  enti 
tles  it  the  "  Early  Life  of  Dante."  Balbo  under 
stands  it  in  the  same  way.2  But  we  are  strongly 
of  the  opinion  that  "  New  Life  "  is  the  interpreta 
tion  sustained  by  the  entire  significance  of  the  book 
itself. 

His  next  work  in  order  of  date  is  the  treatise 
De  Monarchia.  It  has  been  generally  taken  for 
granted  that  Dante  was  a  Guelph  in  politics  up  to 
the  time  of  his  banishment,  and  that  out  of  resent 
ment  he  then  became  a  violent  Ghibelline.  Not  to 

1  Dante  Alighieri's  lyrische  Gedicftfe,  Leipzig,  1842,  Theil  II. 
pp.  4-9. 

2  Vita,  9.  97. 


150  DANTE 

speak  of  the  consideration  that  there  is  no  author 
whose  life  and  works  present  so  remarkable  a 
unity  and  logical  sequence  as  those  of  Dante,  Pro 
fessor  Witte  has  drawn  attention  to  a  fact  which 
alone  is  enough  to  demonstrate  that  the  De  Mo- 
narchia  was  written  before  1300.  That  and  the 

Vita  Nuova  are  the  only  works  of  Dante  in  which 
no  allusion  whatever  is  made  to  his  exile.  That 
bitter  thought  was  continually  present  to  him.  In 
the  Convito  it  betrays  itself  often,  and  with  touch 
ing  unexpectedness.  Even  in  the  treatise  De 

Vulgari  Eloquio,  he  takes  as  one  of  his  examples 
of  style :  "  I  have  most  pity  for  those,  whosoever 
they  are,  that  languish  in  exile,  and  revisit  their 
country  only  in  draams."  We  have  seen  that  the 
one  decisive  act  of  Dante's  priorate  was  to  expel 
from  Florence  the  chiefs  of  both  parties  as  the 
sowers  of  strife,  and  he  tells  us  {Paradiso,  XVII.) 
that  he  had  formed  a  party  by  himself.  The  king 
of  Saxony  has  well  defined  his  political  theory  as 
being  "  an  ideal  Ghibellinism,"  l  and  he  has  been 
accused  of  want  of  patriotism  only  by  those  short 
sighted  persons  who  cannot  see  beyond  their  own 
parish.  Dante's  want  of  faith  in  freedom  was  of 
the  same  kind  with  Milton's  refusing  (as  Tacitus 
had  done  before)  to  confound  license  with  liberty. 
The  argument  of  the  De  Monarchia  is  briefly  this : 
As  the  object  of  the  individual  man  is  the  highest 
development  of  his  faculties,  so  is  it  also  with  men 
united  in  societies.  But  the  individual  can  only 
attain  the  highest  development  when  all  his  powers 

1  Comment  on  Paradiso,  VL 


DANTE  151 

are  in  absolute  subjection  to  the  intellect,  and  so 
ciety  only  when  it  subjects  its  individual  caprices 
to  an  intelligent  head.  This  is  the  order  of  na 
ture,  as  in  families,  and  men  have  followed  it  in 
the  organization  of  villages,  towns,  cities.  Again, 
since  God  made  man  in  his  own  image,  men  and 
societies  most  nearly  resemble  him  in  proportion 
as  they  approach  unity.  But  as  in  all  societies 
questions  must  arise,  so  there  is  need  of  a  monarch 
for  supreme  arbiter.  And  only  a  universal  mon 
arch  can  be  impartial  enough  for  this,  since  kings 
of  limited  territories  would  always  be  liable  to  the 
temptation  of  private  ends.  With  the  internal 
policy  of  municipalities,  commonwealths,  and  king 
doms,  the  monarch  would  have  nothing  to  do,  only 
interfering  when  there  was  danger  of  an  infraction 
of  the  general  peace.  This  is  the  doctrine  of  the 
first  book,  enforced  sometimes  eloquently,  always 
logically,  and  with  great  fertility  of  illustration. 
It  is  an  enlargement  of  some  of  the  obiter  dicta  of 
the  Convito.  The  earnestness  with  which  peace 
is  insisted  on  as  a  necessary  postulate  of  civic  well- 
being  shows  what  the  experience  had  been  out  of 
which  Dante  had  constructed  his  theory.  It  is  to 
be  looked  on  as  a  purely  scholastic  demonstration 
of  a  speculative  thesis,  in  which  the  manifold  ex 
ceptions  and  modifications  essential  in  practical 
application  are  necessarily  left  aside.  Dante  al 
most  forestalls  the  famous  proposition  of  Calvin, 
"  that  it  is  possible  to  conceive  a  people  without  a 
prince,  but  not  a  prince  without  a  people,"  when 
he  says,  Non  enim  gens  propter  regem,  sed  e 


152  DANTE 

verso  rex  propter  gentem.1  And  in  his  letter  to 
the  princes  and  peoples  of  Italy  on  the  coming  of 
Henry  VII.,  he  bids  them  "  obey  their  prince,  but 
so  as  freemen  preserving  their  own  constitutional 
forms."  He  says  also  expressly:  Animadverten- 
dum  sane,  quod  cum  dicitur  humanum  genus  potest 
regi  per  unum  supremum  principem,  non  sic  intel- 
ligendum  est  ut  ab  illo  uno  prodire  possint  muni- 
cipia  et  leges  municipales.  Habent  namque  na- 
tiones,  regna,  et  civitates  inter  se  proprietates  quas 
legibus  differ entibus  regulari  oportet.  Schlosser 
the  historian  compares  Dante's  system  with  that  of 
the  United  States.2  It  in  some  respects  resembled 
more  the  constitution  of  the  Netherlands  under  the 
supreme  stadtholder,  but  parallels  between  ideal 
and  actual  institutions  are  always  unsatisfactory.3 

The  second  book  is  very  curious.  In  it  Dante 
endeavors  to  demonstrate  the  divine  right  of  the 
Roman  Empire  to  universal  sovereignty.  One  of 
his  arguments  is,  that  Christ  consented  to  be  born 
under  the  reign  of  Augustus  ;  another,  that  he  as 
sented  to  the  imperial  jurisdiction  in  allowing  him 
self  to  be  crucified  under  a  decree  of  one  of  its 
courts.  The  atonement  could  not  have  been  accom 
plished  unless  Christ  suffered  under  sentence  of  a 
court  having  jurisdiction,  for  otherwise  his  condem- 

1  Jean  de  Meung  had  already  said,  — 

"  Ge  n'en  met  hors  rois  ne  pre'las 

Qu'il  sunt  tui  serf  au  menu  pueple." 

(Roman  de  la  Ease  (ed.  Me*on),  v.  ii.  pp.  78,  79.) 
*  Dante,  Studien,  etc. ,  1855,  p.  144. 
8  Compare  also  Spinoza,  Tractat.  polit.,  cap.  vi. 


DANTE  153 

nation  would  have  been  an  injustice  and  not  a  pen 
alty.  Moreover,  since  all  mankind  was  typified  in 
the  person  of  Christ,  the  court  must  have  been  one 
having  jurisdiction  over  all  mankind ;  and  since 
he  was  delivered  to  Pilate,  an  officer  of  Tiberius, 
it  must  follow  that  the  jurisdiction  of  Tiberius  was 
universal.  He  draws  an  argument  also  from  the 
wager  of  battle  to  prove  that  the  Roman  Empire 
was  divinely  permitted,  at  least,  if  not  instituted. 
For  since  it  is  admitted  that  God  gives  the  victory, 
and  since  the  Romans  always  won  it,  therefore  it 
was  God's  will  that  the  Romans  should  attain  uni 
versal  empire.  In  the  third  book  he  endeavors  to 
prove  that  the  emperor  holds  by  divine  right,  and 
not  by  permission  of  the  pope.  He  assigns  suprem 
acy  to  the  pope  in  spirituals,  and  to  the  emperor 
in  temporals.  This  was  a  delicate  subject,  and 
though  the  king  of  Saxony  (a  Catholic)  says  that 
Dante  did  not  overstep  the  limits  of  orthodoxy,  it 
was  on  account  of  this  part  of  the  book  that  it  was 
condemned  as  heretical.1 

Next  follows  the  treatise  De  Vulgari  Eloquio. 
Though  we  have  doubts  whether  we  possess  this 
book  as  Dante  wrote  it,  inclining  rather  to  think 
that  it  is  a  copy  in  some  parts  textually  exact,  in 
others  an  abstract,  there  can  be  no  question  either 
of  its  great  glossological  value  or  that  it  conveys 
the  opinions  of  Dante.  We  put  it  next  in  order, 
though  written  later  than  the  Convito,  only  because, 

1  It  is  instructive  to  compare  Dante's  political  treatise  with 
those  of  Aristotle  and  Spinoza.  We  thus  see  more  clearly  the 
limitations  of  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  and  this  may  help  us  to 
a  broader  view  of  him  as  poet. 


154  DANTE 

like  the  De  Monarchic  it  is  written  in  Latin.  It 
is  a  proof  of  the  national  instinct  of  Dante,  and  of 
his  confidence  in  his  genius,  that  he  should  have 
chosen  to  write  all  his  greatest  works  in  what  was 
deemed  by  scholars  a  patois,  but  which  he  more 
than  any  other  man  made  a  classic  language.  Had 
he  intended  the  De  Monarchia  for  a  political  pam 
phlet,  he  would  certainly  not  have  composed  it  in 
the  dialect  of  the  few.  The  De  Vulgari  Eloquio 
was  to  have  been  in  four  books.  Whether  it  was 
ever  finished  or  not  it  is  impossible  to  say;  but 
only  two  books  have  come  down  to  us.  It  treats 
of  poetizing  in  the  vulgar  tongue,  and  of  the  differ 
ent  dialects  of  Italy.  From  the  particularity  with 
which  it  treats  of  the  dialect  of  Bologna,  it  has 
been  supposed  to  have  been  written  in  that  city,  or 
at  least  to  furnish  an  argument  in  favor  of  Dante's 
having  at  some  time  studied  there.  In  lib.  ii. 
cap.  ii.,  is  a  remarkable  passage  in  which,  defin 
ing  the  various  subjects  of  song  and  what  had  been 
treated  in  the  vulgar  tongue  by  different  poets,  he 
says  that  his  own  theme  had  been  righteousness. 

The  Convito  is  also  imperfect.  It  was  to  have 
consisted  of  fourteen  treatises,  but,  as  we  have  it, 
contains  only  four.  In  the  first  he  justifies  the 
use  of  the  vulgar  idiom  in  preference  to  the  Latin. 
In  the  other  three  he  comments  on  three  of  his 
own  Canzoni.  It  will  be  impossible  to  give  an 
adequate  analysis  of  this  work  in  the  limits  allowed 
us.1  It  is  an  epitome  of  the  learning  of  that  age, 

1  A  very  good  one  may  be  found  in  the  sixth  volume  of  the 
Molini  edition  of  Dante,  pp.  391-433. 


DANTE  155 

philosophical,  theological,  and  scientific.  As  afford 
ing  illustration  of  the  Commedia,  and  of  Dante's 
style  of  thought,  it  is  invaluable.  It  is  reckoned 
by  his  countrymen  the  first  piece  of  Italian  prose, 
and  there  are  parts  of  it  which  still  stand  un 
matched  for  eloquence  and  pathos.  The  Italians 
(even  such  a  man  as  Cantii  among  the  rest)  find 
in  it  and  a  few  passages  of  the  Commedia  the 
proof  that  Dante,  as  a  natural  philosopher,  was 
wholly  in  advance  of  his  age,  —  that  he  had, 
among  other  things,  anticipated  Newton  in  the 
theory  of  gravitation.  But  this  is  as  idle  as  the 
claim  that  Shakespeare  had  discovered  the  circula 
tion  of  the  blood  before  Harvey,1  and  one  might 
as  well  attempt  to  dethrone  Newton  because  Chau 
cer  speaks  of  the  love  which  draws  the  apple  to 
the  earth.  The  truth  is,  that  it  was  only  as  a  poet 
that  Dante  was  great  and  original  (glory  enough, 
surely,  to  have  not  more  than  two  competitors), 
and  in  matters  of  science,  as  did  all  his  contempo 
raries,  sought  the  guiding  hand  of  Aristotle  like  a 
child.  Dante  is  assumed  by  many  to  have  been  a 
Platonist,  but  this  is  not  true,  in  the  strict  sense 
of  the  word.  Like  all  men  of  great  imagination, 
he  was  an  idealist,  and  so  far  a  Platonist,  as  Shake 
speare  might  be  proved  to  have  been  by  his  son 
nets.  But  Dante's  direct  acquaintance  with  Plato 
may  be  reckoned  at  zero,  and  we  consider  it  as  hav 
ing  strongly  influenced  his  artistic  development  for 
the  better,  that  transcendentalist  as  he  was  by  na 
ture,  so  much  so  as  to  be  in  danger  of  lapsing  into 
1  See  Field's  Theory  of  Colon. 


156  DANTE 

an  Oriental  mysticism,  his  habits  of  thought  should 
have  been  made  precise  and  his  genius  disciplined 
by  a  mind  so  severely  logical  as  that  of  Aristotle. 
This  does  not  conflict  with  what  we  believe  to  be 
equally  true,  that  the  Platonizing  commentaries  on 
his  poem,  like  that  of  Landino,  are  the  most  satis 
factory.  Beside  the  prose  already  mentioned,  we 
have  a  small  collection  of  Dante's  letters,  the  re 
covery  of  the  larger  number  of  which  we  owe  to 
Professor  Witte.  They  are  all  interesting,  some 
of  them  especially  so,  as  illustrating  the  prophetic 
character  with  which  Dante  invested  himself.  The 
longest  is  one  addressed  to  Can  Grande  della 
Scala,  explaining  the  intention  of  the  Commedia 
and  the  method  to  be  employed  in  its  interpreta 
tion.  The  authenticity  of  this  letter  has  been 
doubted,  but  is  now  generally  admitted. 

We  shall  barely  allude  to  the  minor  poems,  full 
of  grace  and  depth  of  mystic  sentiment,  and  which 
would  have  given  Dante  a  high  place  in  the  his 
tory  of  Italian  literature,  even  had  he  written  noth 
ing  else.  They  are  so  abstract,  however,  that  with 
out  the  extrinsic  interest  of  having  been  written  by 
the  author  of  the  Commedia,  they  would  probably 
find  few  readers.  All  that  is  certainly  known  in 
regard  to  the  Commedia  is  that  it  was  composed 
during  the  nineteen  years  which  intervened  be 
tween  Dante's  banishment  and  death.  Attempts 
have  been  made  to  fix  precisely  the  dates  of  the 
different  parts,  but  without  success,  and  the  differ 
ences  of  opinion  are  bewildering.  Foscolo  has  con 
structed  an  ingenious  and  forcible  argument  to 


DANTE  157 

show  that  no  part  of  the  poem  was  published  before 
the  author's  death.  The  question  depends  some 
what  on  the  meaning  we  attach  to  the  word  "  pub 
lished."  In  an  age  of  manuscript  the  wide  disper 
sion  of  a  poem  so  long  even  as  a  single  one  of  the 
three  divisions  of  the  Commedia  would  be  accom 
plished  very  slowly.  But  it  is  difficult  to  account 
for  the  great  fame  which  Dante  enjoyed  during 
the  latter  years  of  his  life,  unless  we  suppose  that 
parts,  at  least,  of  his  greatest  work  had  been  read 
or  heard  by  a  large  number  of  persons.  This 
need  not,  however,  imply  publication  ;  and  Witte, 
whose  opinion  is  entitled  to  great  consideration, 
supposes  even  the  Inferno  not  to  have  been  fin 
ished  before  1314  or  1315.  In  a  matter  where 
certainty  would  be  impossible,  it  is  of  little  con 
sequence  to  reproduce  conjectural  dates.  In  the 
letter  to  Can  Grande,  before  alluded  to,  Dante  him 
self  has  stated  the  theme  of  his  song.  He  says  that 
"  the  literal  subject  of  the  whole  work  is  the  state  of 
the  soul  after  death  simply  considered.  But  if  the 
work  be  taken  allegorically,  the  subject  is  man,  as 
by  merit  or  demerit,  through  freedom  of  the  will, 
he  renders  himself  liable  to  the  reward  or  punish 
ment  of  justice."  He  tells  us  that  the  work  is  to 
be  interpreted  in  a  literal,  allegorical,  moral,  and 
anagogical  sense,  a  mode  then  commonly  employed 
with  the  Scriptures,1  and  of  which  he  gives  the  fol 
lowing  example :  "  To  make  which  mode  of  treat 
ment  more  clear,  it  may  be  applied  in  the  following 
verses :  In  exitu  Israel  de  ^Egypto,  domus  Jacob 

1  As  by  Dante  himself  in  the  Convito. 


158  DANTE 

de  populo  barbaro,  facto,  est  Judaea  sanctificatio 
ejus,  Israel  potestas  ejus.1  For  if  we  look  only  at 
the  literal  sense,  it  signifies  the  going  out  of  the 
children  of  Israel  from  Egypt  in  the  time  of  Moses ; 
if  at  the  allegorical,  it  signifies  our  redemption 
through  Christ;  if  at  the  moral,  it  signifies  the 
conversion  of  the  soul  from  the  grief  and  misery 
of  sin  to  a  state  of  grace  ;  and  if  at  the  anagogical, 
it  signifies  the  passage  of  the  blessed  soul  from  the 
bondage  of  this  corruption  to  the  freedom  of  eternal 
glory."  A  Latin  couplet,  cited  by  one  of  the  old 
commentators,  puts  the  matter  compactly  together 
for  us : — 

"  Litera  gesta  refert ;  quid  credos  allegaria  ; 
Moral  is  quid  agas  ;  quid  speres  anagogia."1 

Dante  tells  us  that  he  calls  his  poem  a  comedy  be 
cause  it  has  a  fortunate  ending,  and  gives  its  title 
thus  :  "  Here  begins  the  comedy  of  Dante  Alighieri, 
a  Florentine  by  birth,  but  not  in  morals."  2  The 
poem  consists  of  three  parts,  Hell,  Purgatory,  and 
Paradise.  Each  part  is  divided  into  thirty-three 
cantos,  in  allusion  to  the  years  of  the  Saviour's  life  ; 
for  though  the  Hell  contains  thirty-four,  the  first 
canto  is  merely  introductory.  In  the  form  of  the 
verse  (triple  rhyme)  we  may  find  an  emblem  of 
the  Trinity,  and  in  the  three  divisions,  of  the  three 
fold  state  of  man,  sin,  grace,  and  beatitude.  Sym 
bolic  meanings  reveal  themselves,  or  make  them 
selves  suspected,  everywhere,  as  in  the  architecture 
of  the  Middle  Ages.  An  analysis  of  the  poem 

1  Psalm  cxiv.  1,  2. 

2  He  commonly  prefaced  his  letters  with  some  such  phrase  as 
txul  immerittu. 


DANTE  159 

would  be  out  of  place  here,  but  we  must  say  a  few 
words  of  Dante's  position  as  respects  modern  litera 
ture.  If  we  except  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  he  is 
the  first  Christian  poet,  the  first  (indeed,  we  might 
say  the  only)  one  whose  whole  system  of  thought  is 
colored  in  every  finest  fibre  by  a  purely  Christian 
theology.  Lapse  through  sin,  mediation,  and  re 
demption,  these  are  the  subjects  of  the  three  parts 
of  the  poem  :  or,  otherwise  stated,  intellectual  con 
viction  of  the  result  of  sin,  typified  in  Virgil  (sym 
bol  also  of  that  imperialism  whose  origin  he  sang)  ; 
moral  conversion  after  repentance,  by  divine  grace, 
typified  in  Beatrice ;  reconciliation  with  God,  and 
actual  blinding  vision  of  him  — "  The  pure  in 
heart  shall  see  God."  Here  are  general  truths 
which  any  Christian  may  accept  and  find  comfort 
in.  But  the  poem  comes  nearer  to  us  than  this. 
It  is  the  real  history  of  a  brother  man,  of  a  tempted, 
purified,  and  at  last  triumphant  human  soul ;  it 
teaches  the  benign  ministry  of  sorrow,  and  that  the 
ladder  of  that  faith  by  which  man  climbs  to  the 
actual  fruition  of  things  not  seen  ex  quovis  ligno 
nonfit,  but  only  of  the  cross  manfully  borne.  The 
poem  is  also,  in  a  very  intimate  sense,  an  apotheosis 
of  woman.  Indeed,  as  Mar  veil's  drop  of  dew  mir 
rored  the  whole  firmament,  so  we  find  in  the  Corn- 
media  the  image  of  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the  sen 
timental  gyniolatry  of  chivalry,  which  was  at  best 
but  skin-deep,  is  lifted  in  Beatrice  to  an  ideal  and 
universal  plane.  It  is  the  same  with  Catholicism, 
with  imperialism,  with  the  scholastic  philosophy ; 
and  nothing  is  more  wonderful  than  the  power  of 


160  DANTE 

absorption  and  assimilation  in  this  man,  who  could 
take  up  into  himself  the  world  that  then  was,  and 
reproduce  it  with  such  cosmopolitan  truth  to  human 
nature  and  to  his  own  individuality,  as  to  reduce 
all  contemporary  history  to  a  mere  comment  on  his 
vision.  We  protest,  therefore,  against  the  parochial 
criticism  which  would  degrade  Dante  to  a  mere  par 
tisan,  which  sees  in  him  a  Luther  before  his  time, 
and  would  clap  the  bonnet  rouge  upon  his  heavenly 
muse. 

Like  all  great  artistic  minds,  Dante  was  essen 
tially  conservative,  and,  arriving  precisely  in  that 
period  of  transition  when  Church  and  Empire  were 
entering  upon  the  modern  epoch  of  thought,  he 
strove  to  preserve  both  by  presenting  the  theory  of 
both  in  a  pristine  and  ideal  perfection.  The  whole 
nature  of  Dante  was  one  of  intense  belief.  There 
is  proof  upon  proof  that  he  believed  himself  in 
vested  with  a  divine  mission.  Like  the  Hebrew 
prophets,  with  whose  writings  his  whole  soul  was 
imbued,  it  was  back  to  the  old  worship  and  the  God 
of  the  fathers  that  he  called  his  people ;  and  not 
Isaiah  himself  was  more  destitute  of  that  humor,  that 
sense  of  ludicrous  contrast,  which  is  an  essential  in 
the  composition  of  a  sceptic.  In  Dante's  time,  learn 
ing  had  something  of  a  sacred  character  ;  the  line 
was  hardly  yet  drawn  between  the  clerk  and  the 
possessor  of  supernatural  powers ;  it  was  with  the 
next  generation,  with  the  elegant  Petrarch,  even 
more  truly  than  with  the  kindly  Boccaccio,  that  the 
purely  literary  life,  and  that  dilettantism,  which  is 
the  twin  sister  of  scepticism,  began.  As  a  merely 


DANTE  161 

literary  figure,  the  position  of  Dante  is  remarkable. 
Not  only  as  respects  thought,  but  as  respects  aesthet 
ics  also,  his  great  poem  stands  as  a  monument  on 
the  boundary  line  between  the  ancient  and  modern. 
He  not  only  marks,  but  is  in  himself,  the  transi 
tion.  Arma  mrumque  cano,  that  is  the  motto  of 
classic  song ;  the  things  of  this  world  and  great 
men.  Dante  says,  subjectum  est  homo,  not  vir ; 
my  theme  is  man,  not  a  man.  The  scene  of  the 
old  epic  and  drama  was  in  this  world,  and  its  ca 
tastrophe  here ;  Dante  lays  his  scene  in  the  human 
soul,  and  his  fifth  act  in  the  other  world.  He 
makes  himself  the  protagonist  of  his  own  drama. 
In  the  Commedia  for  the  first  time  Christianity 
wholly  revolutionizes  Art,  and  becomes  its  seminal 
principle.  But  aesthetically  also,  as  well  as  mor 
ally,  Dante  stands  between  the  old  and  the  new, 
and  reconciles  them.  The  theme  of  his  poem  is 
purely  subjective,  modern,  what  is  called  romantic ; 
but  its  treatment .  is  objective  (almost  to  realism, 
here  and  there),  and  it  is  limited  by  a  form  of 
classic  severity.  In  the  same  way  he  sums  up  in 
himself  the  two  schools  of  modern  poetry  which  had 
preceded  him,  and,  while  essentially  lyrical  in  his 
subject,  is  epic  in  the  handling  of  it.  So  also  he 
combines  the  deeper  and  more  abstract  religious 
sentiment  of  the  Teutonic  races  with  the  scientific 
precision  and  absolute  systematism  of  the  Romanic. 
In  one  respect  Dante  stands  alone.  While  we  can 
in  some  sort  account  for  such  representative  men 
as  Voltaire  and  Goethe  (nay,  even  Shakespeare) 
by  the  intellectual  and  moral  fermentation  of  the 


162  DANTE 

age  in  which  they  lived,  Dante  seems  morally  iso 
lated  and  to  have  drawn  his  inspiration  almost 
wholly  from  his  own  internal  reserves.  Of  his 
mastery  in  style  we  need  say  little  here.  Of  his 
mere  language,  nothing  could  be  better  than  the  ex 
pression  of  Rivarol :  "  His  verse  holds  itself  erect 
by  the  mere  force  of  the  substantive  and  verb,  with 
out  the  help  of  a  single  epithet."  We  will  only  add 
a  word  on  what  seems  to  us  an  extraordinary  mis 
apprehension  of  Coleridge,  who  disparages  Dante 
by  comparing  his  Lucifer  with  Milton's  Satan.  He 
seems  to  have  forgotten  that  the  precise  measure 
ments  of  Dante  were  not  prosaic,  but  absolutely  de 
manded  by  the  nature  of  his  poem.  He  is  describ 
ing  an  actual  journey,  and  his  exactness  makes  a 
part  of  the  verisimilitude.  We  read  the  "  Paradise 
Lost "  as  a  poem,  the  Commedia  as  a  record  of 
fact ;  and  no  one  can  read  Dante  without  believing 
his  story,  for  it  is  plain  that  he  believed  it  himself. 
It  is  false  aesthetics  to  confound  the  grandiose  with 
the  imaginative.  Milton's  angels  are  not  to  be 
compared  with  Dante's,  at  once  real  and  supernat 
ural  ;  and  the  Deity  of  Milton  is  a  Calvinistic  Zeus, 
while  nothing  in  all  poetry  approaches  the  imagi 
native  grandeur  of  Dante's  vision  of  God  at  the 
conclusion  of  the  Paradiso.  In  all  literary  history 
there  is  no  such  figure  as  Dante,  no  such  homoge- 
neousness  of  life  and  works,  such  loyalty  to  ideas, 
such  sublime  irrecognition  of  the  unessential ;  and 
there  is  no  moral  more  touching  than  that  the 
contemporary  recognition  of  such  a  nature,  so  en 
dowed  and  so  faithful  to  its  endowment,  should  be 


DANTE  163 

summed   up  in  the    sentence   of   Florence:    Igne 
comburatur  sic  quod  moriatur.1 

The  range  of  Dante's  influence  is  not  less  re 
markable  than  its  intensity.  Minds,  the  antipodes 
of  each  other  in  temper  and  endowment,  alike  feel 
the  force  of  his  attraction,  the  pervasive  comfort  of 
his  light  and  warmth.  Boccaccio  and  Lamennais 
are  touched  with  the  same  reverential  enthusiasm. 
The  imaginative  Ruskin  is  rapt  by  him,  as  we  have 
seen,  perhaps  beyond  the  limit  where  critical  appre 
ciation  merges  in  enthusiasm ;  and  the  matter-of- 
fact  Schlosser  tells  us  that  "  he,  who  was  wont  to 
contemplate  earthly  life  wholly  in  an  earthly  light, 
has  made  use  of  Dante,  Landino,  and  Vellutello  in 
his  solitude  to  bring  a  heavenly  light  into  his  in 
ward  life."  Almost  all  other  poets  have  their  sea 
sons,  but  Dante  penetrates  to  the  moral  core  of 
those  who  once  fairly  come  within  his  sphere,  and 
possesses  them  wholly.  His  readers  turn  students, 
his  students  zealots,  and  what  was  a  taste  becomes 
a  religion.  The  homeless  exile  finds  a  home  in 
thousands  of  grateful  hearts :  E  da  esilio  venne  a 
questa  pace. 

1  In  order  to  fix  more  precisely  In  the  mind  the  place  of  Dante 
in  relation  to  the  history  of  thought,  literature,  and  events,  we 
subjoin  a  few  dates  :  Dante  born,  1265 ;  end  of  Crusades,  death  of 
St.  Louis,  1270 ;  Aquinas  died,  1274 ;  Bonaventura  died,  1274 ; 
Giotto  born,  1276 ;  Albertus  Magnus  died,  1280  ;  Sicilian  vespers, 
1282 ;  death  of  Ugolino  and  Francesca  da  Rimini,  1282 ;  death  of 
Beatrice,  1290 ;  Roger  Bacon  died,  1202  ;  death  of  Gimabue,  1302  ; 
Dante's  banishment,  1302 ;  Petrarch  born,  1304 ;  Fra  Dolcino 
burned,  1307  ;  Pope  Clement  V-  at  Avignon,  1309 ;  Templars  sap- 
pressed,  1312  ;  Boccaccio  born,  1313  ;  Dante  died,  1321 ;  Wycliffe 
born,  1324  ;  Chaucer  born,  1328. 


164  DANTE 

Every  kind  of  objection,  aesthetic  and  other,  may 
be,  and  has  been,  made  to  the  Divina  Commedia, 
especially  by  critics  who  have  but  a  superficial  ac 
quaintance  with  it,  or  rather  with  the  Inferno, 
which  is  as  far  as  most  English  critics  go.  Cole 
ridge  himself,  who  had  a  way  of  divining  what  was 
in  books,  may  be  justly  suspected  of  not  going  fur 
ther,  though  with  Gary  to  help  him.  Mr.  Carlyle, 
who  has  said  admirable  things  of  Dante  the  man, 
was  very  imperfectly  read  in  Dante  the  author,  or 
he  would  never  have  put  Sordello  hi  hell  and  the 
meeting  with  Beatrice  in  paradise.  In  France  it 
was  not  much  better  (though  Rivarol  has  said  the 
best  thing  hitherto  of  Dante's  parsimony  of  epi 
thet  x)  before  Ozanam,  who,  if  with  decided  ultra 
montane  leanings,  has  written  excellently  well  of 
our  poet,  and  after  careful  study.  Voltaire,  though 
not  without  relentings  toward  a  poet  who  had  put 
popes  heels  upward  in  hell,  regards  him  on  the 
whole  as  a  stupid  monster  and  barbarian.  It  was 
no  better  in  Italy,  if  we  may  trust  Foscolo,  who 
affirms  that  "  neither  Pelli  nor  others  deservedly 
more  celebrated  than  he  ever  read  attentively  the 
poem  of  Dante,  perhaps  never  ran  through  it  from 

1  Rivarol  characterized  only  a  single  quality  of  Dante's  style, 
•who  knew  how  to  spend  as  well  as  spare.  Even  the  Inferno,  on 
which  he  based  his  remark,  might  have  put  him  on  his  guard. 
Dante  understood  very  well  the  use  of  ornament  in  its  fitting 
place.  Est  enim  exornatio  alicujus  convenientis  additio,  he  tells  us 
in  his  De  Vulgari  Eloquio  (lib.  ii.  cap.  i.).  His  simile  of  the 
doves  (Inferno,  V.  82  et  seq.),  perhaps  the  most  exquisite  in  all 
poetry,  quite  oversteps  Rivarol's  narrow  limit  of  "  substantive  and 
verb." 


DANTE  165 

the  first  verse  to  the  last." l  Accordingly  we  have 
heard  that  the  Commedia  was  a  sermon,  a  political 
pamphlet,  the  revengeful  satire  of  a  disappointed 
Ghibelline,  nay,  worse,  of  a  turncoat  Guelph.  It 
is  narrow,  it  is  bigoted,  it  is  savage,  it  is  theologi 
cal,  it  is  mediaeval,  it  is  heretical,  it  is  scholastic,  it 
is  obscure,  it  is  pedantic,  its  Italian  is  not  that  of  la 
Crusca,  its  ideas  are  not  those  of  an  enlightened 
eighteenth  century,  it  is  everything,  in  short,  that  a 
poem  should  not  be;  and  yet,  singularly  enough, 
the  circle  of  its  charm  has  widened  in  proportion 
as  men  have  receded  from  the  theories  of  Church 
and  State  which  are  supposed  to  be  its  foundation, 
and  as  the  modes  of  thought  of  its  author  have  be 
come  more  alien  to  those  of  his  readers.  In  spite 
of  all  objections,  some  of  which  are  well  founded, 
the  Commedia  remains  one  of  the  three  or  four  uni 
versal  books  that  have  ever  been  written. 

We  may  admit,  with  proper  limitations,  the  mod 
ern  distinction  between  the  Artist  and  the  Moralist. 
With  the  one  Form  is  all  in  all,  with  the  other 
Tendency.  The  aim  of  the  one  is  to  delight,  of  the 
other  to  convince.  The  one  is  master  of  his  pur 
pose,  the  other  mastered  by  it.  The  whole  range 
of  perception  and  thought  is  valuable  to  the  one 
as  it  will  minister  to  imagination,  to  the  other  only 
as  it  is  available  for  argument.  With  the  moralist 
use  is  beauty,  good  only  as  it  serves  an  ulterior 
purpose  ;  with  the  artist  beauty  is  use,  good  in  and 
for  itself.  In  the  fine  arts  the  vehicle  makes  part 
of  the  thought,  coalesces  with  it.  The  living  con- 

1  Discvrso  std  testo,  ec.,  §  XVIII. 


166  DANTE 

ception  shapes  itself  a  body  in  marble,  color,  or 
modulated  sound,  and  henceforth  the  two  are  insep 
arable.  The  results  of  the  moralist  pass  into  the 
intellectual  atmosphere  of  mankind,  it  matters  lit 
tle  by  what  mode  of  conveyance.  But  where,  as 
in  Dante,  the  religious  sentiment  and  the  imagina 
tion  are  both  organic,  something  interfused  with 
the  whole  being  of  the  man,  so  that  they  work  in 
kindly  sympathy,  the  moral  will  insensibly  suffuse 
itself  with  beauty  as  a  cloud  with  light.  Then  that 
fine  sense  of  remote  analogies,  awake  to  the  asso 
nance  between  facts  seemingly  remote  and  unre 
lated,  between  the  outward  and  inward  worlds, 
though  convinced  that  the  things  of  this  life  are 
shadows,  will  be  persuaded  also  that  they  are  not 
fantastic  merely,  but  imply  a  substance  somewhere, 
and  will  love  to  set  forth  the  beauty  of  the  visible 
image  because  it  suggests  the  ineffably  higher 
charm  of  the  unseen  original.  Dante's  ideal  of 
life,  the  enlightening  and  strengthening  of  that  na 
tive  instinct  of  the  soul  which  leads  it  to  strive 
backward  toward  its  divine  source,  may  sublimate 
the  senses  till  each  becomes  a  window  for  the  light 
of  truth  and  the  splendor  of  God  to  shine  through. 
In  him  as  in  Calderon  the  perpetual  presence  of 
imagination  not  only  glorifies  the  philosophy  of  life 
and  the  science  of  theology,  but  idealizes  both  in 
symbols  of  material  beauty.  Though  Dante's  con 
ception  of  the  highest  end  of  man  was  that  he 
should  climb  through  every  phase  of  human  experi 
ence  to  that  transcendental  and  supersensual  region 
where  the  true,  the  good,  and  the  beautiful  blend 


DANTE  167 

in  the  white  light  of  God,  yet  the  prism  of  his  im 
agination  forever  resolved  the  ray  into  color  again, 
and  he  loved  to  show  it  also  where,  entangled  and 
obstructed  in  matter,  it  became  beautiful  once  more 
to  the  eye  of  sense.  Speculation,  he  tells  us,  is  the 
use,  without  any  mixture,  of  our  noblest  part  (the 
reason).  And  this  part  cannot  in  this  life  have  its 
perfect  use,  which  is  to  behold  God  (who  is  the 
highest  object  of  the  intellect),  except  inasmuch 
as  the  intellect  considers  and  beholds  him  in  his 
effects.1  Underlying  Dante  the  metaphysician, 
statesman,  and  theologian,  was  always  Dante  the 
poet,2  irradiating  and  vivifying,  gleaming  through 
in  a  picturesque  phrase,  or  touching  things  unex 
pectedly  with  that  ideal  light  which  softens  and 
subdues  like  distance  in  the  landscape.  The  stern 
outline  of  his  system  wavers  and  melts  away  before 
the  eye  of  the  reader  in  a  mirage  of  imagination 
that  lifts  from  beyond  the  sphere  of  vision  and 
hangs  in  serener  air  images  of  infinite  suggestion 
projected  from  worlds  not  realized,  but  substantial 
to  faith,  hope,  and  aspiration.  Beyond  the  horizon 

1  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  xxii. 

2  It  is  remarkable  that  when  Dante,  in  1297,  as  a  preliminary 
condition  to  active  politics,  enrolled  himself  in  the  guild  of  physi 
cians  and  apothecaries,  he  is  qualified  only  with  the  title  poeta. 
The  arms  of  the  Alighieri  (curiously  suitable  to  him  who  sovra  gli 
altri  come  aquila  vola)  were  a  wing  of  gold  in  a  field  of  azure. 
His  vivid  sense  of  beauty  even  hovers  sometimes  like  a  corposant 
over  the  somewhat  stiff  lines  of  his  Latin  prose.     For  example,  in 
his  letter  to  the  kings  and  princes  of  Italy  on  the  coming  of  Henry 
VII.  :   "  A  new  day  brightens,  revealing  the  dawn  which  already 
scatters  the   shades   of  long  calamity ;    already  the  breezes  of 
morning  gather ;  the  lips  of  heaven  are  reddening  !  " 


168  DANTE 

of  speculation  floats,  in  the  passionless  splendor  of 
the  empyrean,  the  city  of  our  God,  the  Rome 
whereof  Christ  is  a  Roman,1  the  citadel  of  refuge, 
even  in  this  life,  for  souls  purified  by  sorrow  and 
self-denial,  transhumanized 2  to  the  divine  abstrac 
tion  of  pure  contemplation.  "  And  it  is  called  Em 
pyrean,"  he  says  in  his  letter  to  Can  Grande, 
"  which  is  the  same  as  a  heaven  blazing  with  fire 
or  ardor,  not  because  there  is  in  it  a  material  fire 
or  burning,  but  a  spiritual  one,  which  is  blessed 
love  or  charity."  But  this  splendor  he  bodies  forth, 
if  sometimes  quaintly,  yet  always  vividly  and  most 
often  in  types  of  winning  grace. 

Dante  was  a  mystic  with  a  very  practical  turn  of 
mind.  A  Platonist  by  nature,  an  Aristotelian  by 
training,  his  feet  keep  closely  to  the  narrow  path  of 
dialectics,  because  he  believed  it  the  safest,  while 
his  eyes  are  fixed  on  the  stars  and  his  brain  is  busy 
with  things  not  demonstrable,  save  by  that  grace 
of  God  which  passeth  all  understanding,  nor  capa 
ble  of  being  told  unless  by  far-off  hints  and  adum 
brations.  Though  he  himself  has  directly  explained 
the  scope,  the  method,  and  the  larger  meaning  of  his 
greatest  work,3  though  he  has  indirectly  pointed  out 
the  way  to  its  interpretation  in  the  Convito,  and 
though  everything  he  wrote  is  but  an  explanatory 
comment  on  his  own  character  and  opinions,  un 
mistakably  clear  and  precise,  yet  both  man  and 
poem  continue  not  only  to  be  misunderstood  popu- 

1  Purgatorio,  XXXII.  100. 

8  Paradise,  I.  70. 

8  In  a  letter  to  Can  Grande  (XI.  of  the  Epistdae). 


DANTE  169 

larly,  but  also  by  such  as  should  know  better.1 
That  those  who  confined  their  studies  to  the  Corn- 
media  should  have  interpreted  it  variously  is  not 
wonderful,  for  out  of  the  first  or  literal  meaning 
others  open,  one  out  of  another,  each  of  wider  cir 
cuit  and  purer  abstraction,  like  Dante's  own  hea 
vens,  giving  and  receiving  light.2  Indeed,  Dante 
himself  is  partly  to  blame  for  this.  "  The  form  or 
mode  of  treatment,"  he  says,  "  is  poetic,  fictive,  de 
scriptive,  digressive,  transumptive,  and  withal  de 
finitive,  divisive,  probative,  improbative,  and  posi 
tive  of  examples."  Here  are  conundrums  enough, 
to  be  sure !  To  Italians  at  home,  for  whom  the 
great  arenas  of  political  and  religious  speculation 
were  closed,  the  temptation  to  find  a  subtler  mean 
ing  than  the  real  one  was  irresistible.  Italians  in 
exile,  on  the  other  hand,  made  Dante  the  stalking- 
horse  from  behind  which  they  could  take  a  long 
shot  at  Church  and  State,  or  at  obscurer  foes.3  In 
finitely  touching  and  sacred  to  us  is  the  instinct  of 
intense  sympathy  which  draws  these  latter  toward 

1  Witte,  Wegele,  and  Ruth  in  German,  and  Ozanam  in  French, 
have  rendered  ignorance  of  Dante  inexcusable  among  men  of  cul 
ture. 

2  Inferno,  VII.  75.     "Nay,  his  style,"  says  Miss  Rossetti,  "is 
more  than  concise  :  it  is  elliptical,  it  is  recondite.    A  first  thought 
often  lies  coiled  up  and  hidden  under  a  second ;  the  words  -which 
state  the  conclusion  involve  the  premises  and  develop  the  sub 
ject."     (p.  3.) 

8  A  complete  vocabulary  of  Italian  billingsgate  might  be  se 
lected  from  Biagioli.  Or  see  the  concluding  pages  of  Nannucci's 
excellent  tract,  Intorno  alle  voci  usate  da  Dante,  Corfu,  1840.  Even 
Foscolo  could  not  always  refrain.  Dante  should  have  taught  them 
to  shun  such  vulgarities.  See  Inferno,  XXX.  131-148. 


170  DANTE 

their  great  forerunner,  exul  immeritus  like  them 
selves.1  But  they  have  too  often  wrung  a  mean 
ing  from  Dante  which  is  injurious  to  the  man  and 
out  of  keeping  with  the  ideas  of  his  age.  The  aim 
in  expounding  a  great  poem  should  be,  not  to  dis 
cover  an  endless  variety  of  meanings  often  contra 
dictory,  but  whatever  it  has  of  great  and  perennial 
significance ;  for  such  it  must  have,  or  it  would 
long  ago  have  ceased  to  be  living  and  operative, 
would  long  ago  have  taken  refuge  in  the  Char 
treuse  of  great  libraries,  dumb  thenceforth  to  all 
mankind.  We  do  not  mean  to  say  that  this  minute 
exegesis  is  useless  or  unpraiseworthy,  but  only  that 
it  should  be  subsidiary  to  the  larger  way.  It  serves 
to  bring  out  more  clearly  what  is  very  wonderful 
in  Dante,  namely,  the  omnipresence  of  his  memory 
throughout  the  work,  so  that  its  intimate  coherence 
does  not  exist  in  spite  of  the  reconditeness  and 
complexity  of  allusion,  but  is  woven  out  of  them. 
The  poem  has  many  senses,  he  tells  us,  and  there 
can  be  no  doubt  of  it ;  but  it  has  also,  and  this 
alone  will  account  for  its  fascination,  a  living  soul 

1  "  My  Italy,  my  sweetest  Italy,  for  having  loved  thee  too 
much  I  have  lost  thee,  and,  perhaps,  .  .  .  ah,  may  God  avert  the 
omen !  ~  But  more  proud  than  sorrowful  for  an  evil  endured  for 
thee  alone,  I  continue  to  consecrate  my  vigils  to  thee  alone.  .  .  . 
An  exile  full  of  anguish,  perchance,  availed  to  sublime  the  more 
in  thy  Alighieri  that  lofty  soul  which  was  a  beautiful  gift  of  thy 
smiling  sky ;  and  an  exile  equally  wearisome  and  undeserved  now 
avails,  perhaps,  to  sharpen  my  small  genius  so  that  it  may  pene 
trate  into  what  he  left  written  for  thy  instruction  and  for  his 
glory."  (Rossetti,  Disamina,  ec.,  p.  405.)  Rossetti  is  himself  a 
proof  that  a  noble  mind  need  not  be  narrowed  by  misfortune.  His 
Comment  (unhappily  incomplete)  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  and 
suggestive. 


DANTE  171 

behind  them  all  and  informing  all,  an  intense  sin 
gleness  of  purpose,  a  core  of  doctrine  simple,  hu 
man,  and  wholesome,  though  it  be  also,  to  use  his 
own  phrase,  the  bread  of  angels. 

Nor  is  this  unity  characteristic  only  of  the  Di- 
vina  Commedia.  All  the  works  of  Dante,  with 
the  possible  exception  of  the  De  Vulgari  Eloquio 
(which  is  unfinished),  are  component  parts  of  a 
Whole  Duty  of  Man  mutually  completing  and  in 
terpreting  one  another.  They  are  also,  as  truly  as 
Wordsworth's  "  Prelude,"  a  history  of  the  growth 
of  a  poet's  mind.  Like  the  English  poet  he  valued 
himself  at  a  high  rate,  the  higher  no  doubt  after 
Fortune  had  made  him  outwardly  cheap.  Sempre 
il  magnanimo  si  magnified  in  suo  cuore ;  e  cosi 
lo  pusillanimo  per  contrario  sempre  si  tiene  meno 
che  non  e.1  As  in  the  prose  of  Milton,  whose  strik 
ing  likeness  to  Dante  in  certain  prominent  fea 
tures  of  character  has  been  remarked  by  Foscolo, 
there  are  in  Dante's  minor  works  continual  allu 
sions  to  himself  of  great  value  as  material  for  his 
biographer.  Those  who  read  attentively  will  dis 
cover  that  the  tenderness  he  shows  toward  Fran- 
cesca  and  her  lover  did  not  spring  from  any  friend 
ship  for  her  family,  but  was  a  constant  quality  of 
his  nature,  and  that  what  is  called  his  revengeful 
ferocity  is  truly  the  implacable  resentment  of  a 
lofty  mind  and  a  lover  of  good  against  evil,  whether 
showing  itself  in  private  or  public  life;  perhaps 

1  The  great-minded  man  ever  magnifies  himself  in  his  heart, 
and  in  like  manner  the  pusillanimous  holds  himself  less  than  he 
is.  (Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  11.) 


172  DANTE 

hating  the  former  manifestation  of  it  the  most  be 
cause  he  believed  it  to  be  the  root  of  the  latter,  — 
a  faith  which  those  who  have  watched  the  course 
of  politics  in  a  democracy,  as  he  had,  will  be  in 
clined  to  share.  His  gentleness  is  all  the  more 
striking  by  contrast,  like  that  silken  compensation 
which  blooms  out  of  the  thorny  stem  of  the  cactus. 
His  moroseness,1  his  party  spirit,  and  his  personal 
vindictiveness  are  all  predicated  upon  the  Inferno, 
and  upon  a  misapprehension  or  careless  reading 
even  of  that.  Dante's  zeal  was  not  of  that  senti 
mental  kind,  quickly  kindled  and  as  soon  quenched, 
that  hovers  on  the  surface  of  shallow  minds, 

"  Even  as  the  flame  of  unctuous  things  is  wont] 
To  move  upon  the  outer  surface  only  "  ;  2 

it  was  the  steady  heat  of  an  inward  fire  kindling  the 
whole  character  of  the  man  through  and  through, 
like  the  minarets  of  his  own  city  of  Dis.3  He  was, 
as  seems  distinctive  in  some  degree  of  the  Latin 
ized  races,  an  unflinching  a  priori  logician,  not  un 
willing  to  "  syllogize  invidious  verities,"  4  wherever 
they  might  lead  him,  like  Sigier,  whom  he  has  put 
in  paradise,  though  more  than  suspected  of  hetero 
doxy.  But  at  the  same  time,  as  we  shall  see,  he 

1  Dante's  notion  of  virtue  was  not  that  of  an  ascetic,  nor  has 
any  one  ever  painted  her  in  colors  more  soft  and  splendid  than  he 
in  the  Convito.    She  is  "sweeter  than  the  lids  of  Juno's  eyes," 
and  he  dwells  on  the  delights  of  her  love  with  a  rapture  which 
kindles  and  purifies.     So  far  from  making  her  an  inquisitor,  he 
says  expressly  that  she  "  should  be  gladsome  and  not  sullen  in  all 
her  works."     (Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  8.)     "Not  harsh  and  crabbed  as 
dull  fools  suppose  "  I 

2  Inferno,  XIX.  28,  29.  *  Inferno,  VIII.  70-75. 
*  Paradiso,  X.  138. 


DANTE  173 

had  something  of  the  practical  good  sense  of  that 
Teutonic  stock  whence  he  drew  a  part  of  his  blood, 
which  prefers  a  malleable  syllogism  that  can  yield 
without  breaking  to  the  inevitable,  but  incalculable 
pressure  of  human  nature  and  the  stiffer  logic  of 
events.  His  theory  of  Church  and  State  was  not 
merely  a  fantastic  one,  but  intended  for  the  use 
and  benefit  of  men  as  they  were ;  and  he  allowed 
accordingly  for  aberrations,  to  which  even  the  law 
of  gravitation  is  forced  to  give  place ;  how  much 
more,  then,  any  scheme  whose  very  starting-point 
is  the  freedom  of  the  will ! 

We  are  thankful  for  a  commentator  at  last  who 
passes  dry-shod  over  the  turbide  onde  of  inappre- 
ciative  criticism,  and,  quietly  waving  aside  the 
thick  atmosphere  which  has  gathered  about  the 
character  of  Dante  both  as  man  and  poet,  opens 
for  us  his  City  of  Doom  with  the  divining-rod  of 
reverential  study.  Miss  Kossetti  comes  commended 
to  our  interest,  not  only  as  one  of  a  family  which 
seems  to  hold  genius  by  the  tenure  of  gavelkind, 
but  as  having  a  special  claim  by  inheritance  to  a 
love  and  understanding  of  Dante.  She  writes  Eng 
lish  with  a  purity  that  has  in  it  something  of  fem 
inine  softness  with  no  lack  of  vigor  or  precision. 
Her  lithe  mind  winds  itself  with  surprising  grace 
through  the  metaphysical  and  other  intricacies  of 
her  subject.  She  brings  to  her  work  the  refined 
enthusiasm  of  a  cultivated  woman  and  the  penetra 
tion  of  sympathy.  She  has  chosen  the  better  way 
(in  which  Germany  took  the  lead)  of  interpreting 
Dante  out  of  himself,  the  pure  spring  from  which, 


174  DANTE 

and  from  which  alone,  he  drew  his  inspiration,  and 
not  from  muddy  Fra  Alberico  or  Abbate  Giovac- 
chino,  from  stupid  visions  of  Saint  Paul  or  voyages 
of  Saint  Brandan.  She  has  written  by  far  the 
best  comment  that  has  appeared  in  English,  and 
we  should  say  the  best  that  has  been  done  in  Eng 
land,  were  it  not  for  her  father's  Comento  anali- 
tico,  for  excepting  which  her  filial  piety  will  thank 
us.  Students  of  Dante  in  the  original  will  be 
grateful  to  her  for  many  suggestive  hints,  and 
those  who  read  him  in  English  will  find  in  her 
volume  a  travelling  map  in  which  the  principal 
points  and  their  connections  are  clearly  set  down. 
In  what  we  shall  say  of  Dante  we  shall  endeavor 
only  to  supplement  her  interpretation  with  such 
side-lights  as  may  have  been  furnished  us  by 
twenty  years  of  assiduous  study.  Dante's  thought 
is  multiform,  and,  like  certain  street  signs,  once 
common,  presents  a  different  image  according  to 
the  point  of  view.  Let  us  consider  briefly  what 
was  the  plan  of  the  Divina  Commedia  and  Dante's 
aim  in  writing  it,  which,  if  not  to  justify,  was  at 
least  to  illustrate,  for  warning  and  example,  the 
ways  of  God  to  man.  The  higher  intention  of  the 
poem  was  to  set  forth  the  results  of  sin,  or  unwis 
dom,  and  of  virtue,  or  wisdom,  in  this  life,  and  conse 
quently  in  the  life  to  come,  which  is  but  the  contin 
uation  and  fulfilment  of  this.  The  scene  accordingly 
is  the  spiritual  world,  of  which  we  are  as  truly  deni 
zens  now  as  hereafter.  The  poem  is  a  diary  of  the 
human  soul  in  its  journey  upwards  from  error 
through  repentance  to  atonement  with  God.  To 


DANTE  175 

make  it  apprehensible  by  those  whom  it  was  meant 
to  teach,  nay,  from  its  very  nature  as  a  poem,  and 
not  a  treatise  of  abstract  morality,  it  must  set 
forth  everything  by  means  of  sensible  types  and 
images. 

"  To  speak  thus  is  adapted  to  your  mind, 

Since  only  through  the  sense  it  apprehendeth 
What  then  it  worthy  makes  of  intellect. 
On  this  account  the  Scripture  condescends 
Unto  your  faculties,  and  feet  and  hands 
To  God  attributes,  and  means  something  else."  x 

"Whoever  has  studied  mediaeval  art  in  any  of  its 
branches  need  not  be  told  that  Dante's  age  was 
one  that  demanded  very  palpable  and  even  revolt 
ing  types.  As  in  the  old  legend,  a  drop  of  scald 
ing  sweat  from  the  damned  soul  must  shrivel  the 
very  skin  of  those  for  whom  he  wrote,  to  make 
them  wince  if  not  to  turn  them  away  from  evil- 
doing.  To  consider  his  hell  a  place  of  physical 
torture  is  to  take  Circe's  herd  for  real  swine.  Its 
mouth  yawns  not  only  under  Florence,  but  before 
the  feet  of  every  man  everywhere  who  goeth  about 
to  do  evil.  His  hell  is  a  condition  of  the  soul,  and 
he  could  not  find  images  loathsome  enough  to  ex 
press  the  moral  deformity  which  is  wrought  by  sin 
on  its  victims,  or  his  own  abhorrence  of  it.  Its 
inmates  meet  you  in  the  street  every  day. 

"  Hell  hath  no  limits,  nor  is  circumscribed 
In  one  self  place  ;  for  where  we  are  is  hell, 
And  where  hell  is  there  we  must  ever  be."  2 

1  Paradise,  IV.  40-45  (Longfellow's  version). 

2  Marlowe's  Faustus.     "  Which  way  I  fly  is  hell ;    myself  am 
hell."     (Paradise  Lost,  IV.  75.)     In  the  same  way,  ogni  dove  f» 
eielo  e  Paradiso.    (Paradiso,  ILL.  88,  89.) 


176  DANTE 

It  is  our  own  sensual  eye  that  gives  evil  the  ap 
pearance  of  good,  and  out  of  a  crooked  hag  makes 
a  bewitching  siren.  The  reason  enlightened  by 
the  grace  of  God  sees  it  as  it  truly  is,  full  of  stench 
and  corruption.1  It  is  this  office  of  reason  which 
Dante  undertakes  to  perform,  by  divine  commis 
sion,  hi  the  Inferno.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
he  looked  upon  himself  as  invested  with  the  pro 
phetic  function,  and  the  Hebrew  forerunners,  in 
whose  society  his  soul  sought  consolation  and  sus- 
tainment,  certainly  set  him  no  example  of  observ 
ing  the  conventions  of  good  society  in  dealing  with 
the  enemies  of  God.  Indeed,  his  notions  of  good 
society  were  not  altogether  those  of  this  world  in 
any  generation.  He  would  have  defined  it  as  mean 
ing  "  the  peers  "  of  Philosophy,  "  souls  free  from 
wretched  and  vile  delights  and  from  vulgar  habits, 
endowed  with  genius  and  memory."  2  Dante  him 
self  had  precisely  this  endowment,  and  in  a  very 
surprising  degree.  His  genius  enabled  him  to  see 
and  to  show  what  he  saw  to  others ;  his  memory 
neither  forgot  nor  forgave.  Very  hateful  to  his 
fervid  heart  and  sincere  mind  would  have  been  the 
modern  theory  which  deals  with  sin  as  involuntary 
error,  and  by  shifting  off  the  fault  to  the  shoulders 
of  Atavism  or  those  of  Society,  personified  for  pur 
poses  of  excuse,  but  escaping  into  impersonality 
again  from  the  grasp  of  retribution,  weakens  that 
sense  of  personal  responsibility  which  is  the  root 
of  self-respect  and  the  safeguard  of  character. 
Dante  indeed  saw  clearly  enough  that  the  Divine 
1  Purgatorio,  XIX.  7-33.  2  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  16. 


DANTE  177 

justice  did  at  length  overtake  Society  in  the  ruin 
of  states  caused  by  the  corruption  of  private,  and 
thence  of  civic,  morals ;  but  a  personality  so  in 
tense  as  his  could  not  be  satisfied  with  such  a  tardy 
and  generalized  penalty  as  this.  "It  is  Thou," 
he  says  sternly,  "  who  hast  done  this  thing,  and 
Thou,  not  Society,  shalt  be  damned  for  it;  nay, 
damned  all  the  worse  for  this  paltry  subterfuge. 
This  is  not  my  judgment,  but  that  of  universal 
Nature  *  from  before  the  beginning  of  the  world."  2 
Accordingly  the  highest  reason,  typified  in  his 
guide  Virgil,  rebukes  him  for  bringing  compas 
sion  to  the  judgments  of  God,3  and  again  em 
braces  him  and  calls  the  mother  that  bore  him 
blessed,  when  he  bids  Filippo  Argenti  begone 
among  the  other  dogs.4  This  latter  case  shocks 
our  modern  feelings  the  more  rudely  for  the  simple 
pathos  with  which  Dante  makes  Argenti  answer 
when  asked  who  he  was,  "  Thou  seest  I  am  one 

1  La  natura  universale,  doe  Iddio.    (Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  4.) 

2  Inferno,  III.  7,  8. 

3  Inferno,  XX.  30.     Mr.  W.  M.  Rossetti  strangely  enough  ren 
ders   this   verse    "Who  hath  a  passion  for  God's  judgeship." 
Compassion  porta,  is  the  reading  of  the  best  texts,  and  Witte 
adopts  it.     Buti's  comment  is  "  doe  porta  pena  e  dolore  di  colui 
che  giustamente  e  condannato  da  Dio  che  e  sempre  giusto."     There 
is  an  analogous  passage  in  The  Revelation  of  the  Apostle  Paul, 
printed  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Oriental  Societj  (vol. 
viii.  pp.  213,  214)  :    "  And  the  angel  answered  and  said,  '  Where 
fore  dost  thou  weep  ?   Why !  art  tliou  more  merciful  than  God  ?  ' 
And  I  said,  '  God  forbid,  0  my  lord  ;  for  God  is  good  and  long- 
suffering  unto  the  sons  of  men,  and  he  leaves  every  one  of  them 
to  his  own  will,  and  he  walks  as  he  pleases.'  "     This  is  precisely 
Dante's  view. 

*  Inferno,  VIH.  40. 


178  DANTE 

that  weeps."  It  is  also  the  one  that  makes  most 
strongly  for  the  theory  of  Dante's  personal  vindic- 
tiveness,1  and  it  may  count  for  what  it  is  worth. 
We  are  not  greatly  concerned  to  defend  him  on 
that  score,  for  he  believed  in  the  righteous  use  of 
anger,  and  that  baseness  was  its  legitimate  quarry. 
He  did  not  think  the  Tweeds  and  Fisks,  the  politi 
cal  wire-pullers  and  convention-packers,  of  his  day 
merely  amusing,  and  he  certainly  did  think  it  the 
duty  of  an  upright  and  thoroughly  trained  citizen 
to  speak  out  severely  and  unmistakably.  He  be 
lieved  firmly,  almost  fiercely,  in  a  divine  order  of 
the  universe,  a  conception  whereof  had  been  vouch 
safed  him,  and  that  whatever  and  whoever  hindered 
or  jostled  it,  whether  wilfully  or  blindly  it  mattered 
not,  was  to  be  got  out  of  the  way  at  all  hazards ; 
because  obedience  to  God's  law,  and  not  making 
things  generally  comfortable,  was  the  highest  duty 
of  man,  as  it  was  also  his  only  way  to  true  felicity. 
It  has  been  commonly  assumed  that  Dante  was  a 
man  soured  by  undeserved  misfortune,  that  he  took 
up  a  wholly  new  outfit  of  political  opinions  with 
his  fallen  fortunes,  and  that  his  theory  of  life  and 
of  man's  relations  to  it  was  altogether  reshaped  for 
him  by  the  bitter  musings  of  his  exile.  This  would 

1  "  I  following  her  (Moral  Philosophy)  in  the  work  as  well  as 
the  passion,  so  far  as  I  could,  abominated  and  disparaged  the 
errors  of  men,  not  to  the  infamy  and  shame  of  the  erring,  hut  of 
the  errors."  (Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  1.)  "  Wherefore  in  my  judg 
ment  as  he  who  defames  a  worthy  man  ought  to  he  avoided  by 
people  and  not  listened  to,  so  a  vile  man  descended  of  worthy 
ancestors  ought  to  be  hunted  out  by  all."  (Convito,  Tr.  IV. 
e.29.) 


DANTE  179 

be  singular,  to  say  the  least,  in  a  man  who  tells  us 
that  he  "felt  himself  indeed  four-square  against 
the  strokes  of  chance,"  and  whose  convictions  were 
so  intimate  that  they  were  not  merely  intellectual 
conclusions,  but  parts  of  his  moral  being.  Fortu 
nately  we  are  called  on  to  believe  nothing  of  the 
kind.  Dante  himself  has  supplied  us  with  hints 
and  dates  which  enable  us  to  watch  the  germina 
tion  and  trace  the  growth  of  his  double  theory  of 
government,  applicable  to  man  as  he  is  a  citizen  of 
this  world,  and  as  he  hopes  to  become  hereafter  a 
freeman  of  the  celestial  city.  It  would  be  of  little 
consequence  to  show  in  which  of  two  equally  self 
ish  and  short-sighted  parties  a  man  enrolled  him 
self  six  hundred  years  ago,  but  it  is  worth  some 
thing  to  know  that  a  man  of  Ambitious  temper  and 
violent  passions,  aspiring  to  office  in  a  city  of  fac 
tions,  could  rise  to  a  level  of  principle  so  far  above 
them  all.  Dante's  opinions  have  life  in  them  still, 
because  they  were  drawn  from  living  sources  of  re 
flection  and  experience,  because  they  were  reasoned 
out  from  the  astronomic  laws  of  history  and  ethics, 
and  were  not  weather-guesses  snatched  in  a  glance 
at  the  doubtful  political  sky  of  the  hour. 

Swiftly  the  politic  goes :  is  it  dark  ?  he  borrows  a  lantern ; 
Slowly  the  statesman  and  sure,  guiding  his  feet  by  the  stars. 

It  will  be  well,  then,  to  clear  up  the  chronology  of 
Dante's  thought.  When  his  ancestor  Cacciaguida 
prophesies  to  him  the  life  which  is  to  be  his  after 
1300,1  he  says,  speaking  of  his  exile:  — 

1  Paradise,  XVII.  61-69. 


180  DANTE 

11  And  that  which  most  shall  -weigh  upon  thy  shoulders 
Will  be  the  bad  and  foolish  company 
With  which  into  this  valley  thou  shalt  fall ; 

Of  their  bestiality  their  own  proceedings 

Shall  furnish  proof ;  so  't  will  be  well  for  thee  » 

A  party  to  have  made  thee  by  thyself." 

Here  both  context  and  grammatical  construction 
(infallible  guides  in  a  writer  so  scrupulous  and 
exact)  imply  irresistibly  that  Dante  had  become  a 
party  by  himself  before  his  exile.  The  measure 
adopted  by  the  Priors  of  Florence  while  he  was 
one  of  them  (with  his  assent  and  probably  by  his 
counsel),  of  sending  to  the  frontier  the  leading 
men  of  both  factions,  confirms  this  implication. 
Among  the  persons  thus  removed  from  the  oppor 
tunity  of  doing  mischief  was  his  dearest  friend 
Guido  Cavalcanti,  to  whom  he  had  not  long  before 
addressed  the  Vita  JVuova.1  Dante  evidently 
looked  back  with  satisfaction  on  his  conduct  at 
this  time,  and  thought  it  both  honest  and  patriotic, 
as  it  certainly  was  disinterested.  "We  whose 
country  is  the  world,  as  the  ocean  to  the  fish,"  he 
tells  us,  "  though  we  drank  of  the  Arno  in  infancy, 
and  love  Florence  so  much  that,  because  we  loved 
her,  we  suffer  exile  unjustly,  support  the  shoulders 

1  It  is  worth  mentioning  that  the  sufferers  in  his  Inferno  are  in 
like  manner  pretty  exactly  divided  between  the  two  parties. 
This  is  answer  enough  to  the  charge  of  partiality.  He  even  puts 
persons  there  for  whom  he  felt  affection  (as  Brunetto  Latini)  and 
respect  (as  Farinata  degli  Uberti  and  Frederick  II.).  Till  the 
French  looked  up  their  MSS.,  it  was  taken  for  granted  that  the 
beccajo  di  Parigi  (Purgatario,  XX.  52)  was  a  drop  of  Dante's  gall. 
*Ce  fu  Huez  Capez  c'  on  apelle  bouchier."  Hugues  Capet,  p.  1. 


DANTE  181 

of  our  judgment  rather  upon  reason  than  the 
senses." 1  And  again,  speaking  of  old  age,  he 
says :  "  And  the  noble  soul  at  this  age  blesses  also 
the  times  past,  and  well  may  bless  them,  because, 
revolving  them  in  memory,  she  recalls  her  right 
eous  conduct,  without  which  she  could  not  enter 
the  port  to  which  she  draws  nigh,  with  so  much 
riches  and  so  great  gain."  This  language  is  not 
that  of  a  man  who  regrets  some  former  action  as 
mistaken,  still  less  of  one  who  repented  it  for  any 
disastrous  consequences  to  himself.  So,  in  justi 
fying  a  man  for  speaking  of  himself,  he  alleges 
two  examples,  —  that  of  Boethius,  who  did  so  to 
"  clear  himself  of  the  perpetual  infamy  of  his  ex 
ile  "  ;  and  that  of  Augustine,  "  for,  by  the  process 
of  his  life,  which  was  from  bad  to  good,  from  good 
to  better,  and  from  better  to  best,  he  gave  us  ex 
ample  and  teaching."  2  After  middle  life,  at  least, 
Dante  had  that  wisdom  "  whose  use  brings  with  it 
marvellous  beauties,  that  is,  contentment  with  every 
condition  of  time,  and  contempt  of  those  things 
which  others  make  their  masters." 3  If  Dante, 
moreover,  wrote  his  treatise  De  Monarchia  before 
1302,  and  we  think  Witte's  inference,  4  from  its 
style  and  from  the  fact  that  he  nowhere  alludes  to 
his  banishment  in  it,  conclusive  on  this  point,  then 
he  was  already  a  Ghibelline  in  the  same  larger  and 

1  De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  lib.  i.  cap.  vi.     Cf .  Inferno,  XV.  61-64. 

2  Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  2. 

8  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  13. 

4  Opp.  Min.,  ed.  Fraticelli,  vol.  ii.  pp.  281  and  283.  Witte 
is  inclined  to  put  it  even  earlier  than  1300,  and  we  believe  he  is 
right. 


182  DANTE 

unpartisan  sense  which  ever  after  distinguished 
him  from  his  Italian  contemporaries. 

"  Let,  let  the  Ghibellines  ply  their  handicraft 

Beneath  some  other  standard ;  for  this  ever 
111  follows  he  who  it  and  justice  parts," 

he  makes  Justinian  say,  speaking  of  the  Roman 
eagle.1  His  Ghibellinism,  though  undoubtedly  the 
result  of  what  he  had  seen  of  Italian  misgovern- 
ment,  embraced  in  its  theoretical  application  the 
civilized  world.  His  political  system  was  one 
which  his  reason  adopted,  not  for  any  temporary 
expediency,  but  because  it  conduced  to  justice, 
peace,  and  civilization,  —  the  three  conditions  on 
which  alone  freedom  was  possible  in  any  sense 
which  made  it  worth  having.  Dante  was  intensely 
Italian,  nay,  intensely  Florentine,  but  on  all  great 
questions  he  was,  by  the  logical  structure  of  his 
mind  and  its  philosophic  impartiality,  incapable  of 
intellectual  provincialism.2  If  the  circle  of  his 
affections,  as  with  persistent  natures  commonly, 
was  narrow,  his  thought  swept  a  broad  horizon 
from  that  tower  of  absolute  self  which  he  had 
reared  for  its  speculation.  Even  upon  the  princi 
ples  of  poetry,  mechanical  and  other,3  he  had  re 
flected  more  profoundly  than  most  of  those  who 
criticise  his  work,  and  it  was  not  by  chance  that  he 
discovered  the  secret  of  that  magical  word  too  few, 
which  not  only  distinguishes  his  verse  from  all 

1  Paradiso,  VI.  103-105. 

2  Some  Florentines  have  amusingly  enough  doubted  the  genu 
ineness  of  the  De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  because  Dante  therein  denies 
the  preeminence  of  the  Tuscan  dialect. 

8  See  particularly  the  second  book  of  the  De  Vulgari  Eloquio. 


DANTE  183 

other,  but  so  strikingly  from  his  own  prose.  He 
never  took  the  bit  of  art 1  between  his  teeth  where 
only  poetry,  and  not  doctrine,  was  concerned. 

If  Dante's  philosophy,  on  the  one  hand,  was 
practical,  a  guide  for  the  conduct  of  life,  it  was,  on 
the  other,  a  much  more  transcendent  thing,  whose 
body  was  wisdom,  her  soul  love,  and  her  efficient 
cause  truth.  It  is  a  practice  of  wisdom  from  the 
mere  love  of  it,  for  so  we  must  interpret  his  amo 
roso  uso  di  sapienza,  when  we  remember  how 
he  has  said  before 2  that  "  the  love  of  wisdom  for 
its  delight  or  profit  is  not  true  love  of  wisdom." 
And  this  love  must  embrace  knowledge  in  all  its 
branches,  for  Dante  is  content  with  nothing  less 
than  a  pancratic  training,  and  has  a  scorn  of  dilet 
tanti,  specialists,  and  quacks.  "Wherefore  none 

1  Purgatorio,  XXXIII.  141.     "  That  thing  one  calls  beautiful 
•whose  parts  answer  to  each  other,  because  pleasure  results  from 
their  harmony."     (Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  5.)     Carlyle  says  that  "he 
knew  too,  partly,  that  his  work  was  great,  the  greatest  a  man 
could  do."     He  knew  it  fully.     Telling  us  how  Giotto's  fame  as  a 
painter  had  eclipsed  that  of  Cimabue,  he  takes  an  example  from 
poetry   also,   and   selecting   two    Italian   poets,  —  one   the   most 
famous  of  his  predecessors,  the  other  of  his  contemporaries,  — 
calmly  sets  himself  above  them  both  (Purgatorio,  XI.  97-99),  and 
gives  the  reason  for  his  supremacy  (Purgatorio,  XXIV.  49-62). 
It  is  to  be  remembered  that  Amore  in  the  latter  passage  does  not 
mean  love  in  the  ordinary  sense,  but  in  that  transcendental  one 
set  forth  in  the  Convito,  —  that  state  of  the  soul  which  opens  it 
for  the  descent  of  God's  spirit,  to  make  it  over  into  his  own  image. 
' '  Therefore  it  is  manifest  that  in  this  love  the  Divine  virtue  de 
scends  into  men  in  the  guise  of  an  angel,   .  .  .  and  it  is  to  be 
noted  that  the  descending  of  the  virtue  of  one  thing  into  another 
is  nothing  else  than  reducing  it  to  its  own  likeness."     (Convito, 
Tr.  III.  c.  14.) 

2  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  12  ;  ib.  c.  11. 


184  DANTE 

ought  to  be  called  a  true  philosopher  who  for  any 
delight  loves  any  part  of  knowledge,  as  there  are 
many  who  delight  in  composing  Canzoni,  and  de 
light  to  be  studious  in  them,  and  who  delight  to  be 
studious  in  rhetoric  and  in  music,  and  flee  and 
abandon  the  other  sciences  which  are  all  members 
of  wisdom." l  "  Many  love  better  to  be  held  mas 
ters  than  to  be  so."  With  him  wisdom  is  the 
generalization  from  many  several  knowledges  of 
small  account  by  themselves ;  it  results  therefore 
from  breadth  of  culture,  and  would  be  impossible 
without  it.  Philosophy  is  a  noble  lady  (donna  gen- 
til2'),  partaking  of  the  divine  essence  by  a  kind  of 
eternal  marriage,  while  with  other  intelligences  she 
is  united  in  a  less  measure  "  as  a  mistress  of  whom 
no  lover  takes  complete  joy."  3  The  eyes  of  this 
lady  are  her  demonstrations,  and  her  smile  is  her 
persuasion.  "  The  eyes  of  wisdom  are  her  demon 
strations  by  which  truth  is  beheld  most  certainly ; 

1  Convito,  Tr.  in.  c.  11. 

2  Convito,  Tr.  III.  Canzone,  w.  19-22.  —  This  lady  corresponds 
to  Lucia  (Inferno,  II.  97),  the  prevenient  Grace,  the  light  of  God 
which  shows  the  right  path  and  guides  the  feet  in  it.     With  Dante 
God  is  always  the  sun, "  which  leadeth  others  right  hy  every  road." 
(Inferno,  L   18.)    "  The  spiritual  and  intelligible  Sun,  which  is 
God."     (Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  12.)     His  light  "  enlighteneth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world,"  but  his  dwelling  is  in  the  hea 
vens.     He  who  wilfully  deprives  himself  of  this  light  is  spiritually 
dead  in  sin.     So  when  in  Mars  he  beholds  the  glorified  spirits  of 
the  martyrs   he  exclaims,  "  0   Helios,  who  so   arrayest  them !  " 
(Paradiso,  XIV.  96.)     Blanc  (Vocabolario,  sub  voce)  rejects  this 
interpretation.     But  Dante,  entering  the  abode  of   the  Blessed, 
invokes  the  "  good  Apollo,"  and  shortly  after  calls  him  divina 
virtu.    We  shall  have  more  to  say  of  this  hereafter. 

*  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  12. 


DANTE  185 

and  her  smile  is  her  persuasions  in  which  the  in 
terior  light  of  wisdom  is  shown  under  a  certain 
veil,  and  in  these  two  is  felt  that  highest  pleasure 
of  beatitude  which  is  the  greatest  good  in  para 
dise."  l  "  It  is  to  be  known  that  the  beholding  this 
lady  was  so  largely  ordained  for  us,  not  merely  to 
look  upon  the  face  which  she  shows  us,  but  that 
we  may  desire  to  attain  the  things  which  she  keeps 
concealed.  And  as  through  her  much  thereof  is 
seen  by  reason,  so  by  her  we  believe  that  every 
miracle  may  have  its  reason  in  a  higher  intellect, 
and  consequently  may  be.  Whence  our  good  faith 
has  its  origin,  whence  comes  the  hope  of  those 
unseen  things  which  we  desire,  and  through  that 
the  operation  of  charity,  by  the  which  three  virtues 
we  rise  to  philosophize  in  that  celestial  Athens 
where  the  Stoics,  Peripatetics,  and  Epicureans 
through  the  art  of  eternal  truth  accordingly  concur 
in  one  will."  2 

As  to  the  double  scope  of  Dante's  philosophy  we 
will  cite  a  passage  from  the  Convito,  all  the  more 
to  our  purpose  as  it  will  illustrate  his  own  method 

1  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  15.  Recalling  how  the  eyes  of  Beatrice 
lift  her  servant  through  the  heavenly  spheres,  and  that  smile  of 
hers  so  often  dwelt  on  with  rapture,  we  see  how  Dante  was  in  the 
habit  of  commenting  and  illustrating  his  own  works.  We  must 
remember  always  that  with  him  the  allegorical  exposition  is  the 
true  one  (Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  1),  the  allegory  being  a  truth  which 
is  hidden  under  a  beautiful  falsehood  (Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  1),  and 
that  Dante  thought  his  poems  without  this  exposition  "under 
some  shade  of  obscurity,  so  that  to  many  their  beauty  was  more 
grateful  than  their  goodness"  (Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  1),  "because 
the  goodness  is  in  the  meaning,  and  the  beauty  in  the  ornament  of 
the  words"  (Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  12). 

«  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  14. 


186  DANTE 

of  allegorizing.  "Verily  the  use  of  our  mind  is 
double,  that  is,  practical  and  speculative,  the  one 
agd  the  other  most  delightful,  although  that  of  con 
templation  be  the  more  so.  That  of  the  practi 
cal  is  for  us  to  act  virtuously,  that  is,  honorably, 
with  prudence,  temperance,  fortitude,  and  justice. 
[These  are  the  four  stars  seen  by  Dante,  Purgato- 
rio,  I.  22,  27.]  That  of  the  speculative  is  not  to 
act  for  ourselves,  but  to  consider  the  works  of  God 
and  nature.  .  .  .  Verily  of  these  uses  one  is  more 
full  of  beatitude  than  the  other,  as  it  is  the  specu 
lative,  which  without  any  admixture  is  the  use  of 
our  noblest  part.  .  .  .  And  this  part  in  this  life 
cannot  have  its  use  perfectly,  which  is  to  see  God, 
except  inasmuch  as  the  intellect  considers  him  and 
beholds  him  through  his  effects.  And  that  we 
should  seek  this  beatitude  as  the  highest,  and  not 
the  other,  the  Gospel  of  Mark  teaches  us  if  we  will 
look  well.  Mark  says  that  Mary  Magdalene,  Mary 
the  mother  of  James,  and  Mary  Salome  went  to 
find  the  Saviour  at  the  tomb  and  found  him  not, 
but  found  a  youth  clad  in  white  who  said  to  them, 
4  Ye  seek  the  Saviour,  and  I  say  unto  you  that  he 
is  not  here ;  and  yet  fear  ye  not,  but  go  and  say 
unto  his  disciples  and  Peter  that  he  will  go  before 
them  into  Galilee,  and  there  ye  shall  see  him  even 
as  he  told  you.'  By  these  three  women  may  be  un 
derstood  the  three  sects  of  the  active  life,  that  is, 
the  Epicureans,  the  Stoics,  and  the  Peripatetics, 
who  go  to  the  tomb,  that  is,  to  the  present  life, 
which  is  a  receptacle  of  things  corruptible,  and  seek 
the  Saviour,  that  is,  beatitude,  and  find  him  not, 


DANTE  187 

but  they  find  a  youth  in  white  raiment,  who,  ac 
cording  to  the  testimony  of  Matthew  and  the  rest, 
was  an  angel  of  God.  This  angel  is  that  nobleness 
of  ours  which  conies  from  God,  as  hath  been  said, 
which  speaks  in  our  reason  and  says  to  each  of 
these  sects,  that  is,  to  whoever  goes  s'eeking  beati 
tude  in  this  life,  that  it  is  not  here,  but  go  and  say 
to  the  disciples  and  to  Peter,  that  is,  to  those  who 
go  seeking  it  and  those  who  are  gone  astray  (like 
Peter  who  had  denied),  that  it  will  go  before  them 
into  Galilee,  that  is,  into  speculation.  Galilee  is 
as  much  as  to  say  Whiteness.  Whiteness  is  a 
body  full  of  corporeal  light  more  than  any  other, 
and  so  contemplation  is  fuller  of  spiritual  light 
than  anything  else  here  below.  And  he  says,  *  it 
will  go  before,'  and  does  not  say,  '  it  will  be  with 
you,'  to  give  us  to  understand  that  God  always  goes 
before  our  contemplation,  nor  can  we  ever  over 
take  here  Him  who  is  our  supreme  beatitude.  And 
it  is  said,  '  There  ye  shall  see  him  as  he  told  you,' 
that  is,  here  ye  shall  have  of  his  sweetness,  that  is, 
felicity,  as  is  promised  you  here,  that  is,  as  it  is  or 
dained  that  ye  can  have.  And  thus  it  appears  that 
we  find  our  beatitude,  this  felicity  of  which  we  are 
speaking,  first  imperfect  in  the  active  life,  that  is, 
in  the  operations  of  the  moral  virtues,  and  after 
wards  wellnigh  perfect  in  the  operation  of  the  in 
tellectual  ones,  the  which  two  operations  are  speedy 
and  most  direct  ways  to  lead  to  the  supreme  beati 
tude,  the  which  cannot  be  had  here,  as  appears  by 
what  has  been  said."  1 

1  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  22. 


188  DANTE 

At  first  sight  there  may  seem  to  be  some  want  of 
agreement  in  what  Dante  says  here  of  the  soul's 
incapacity  of  the  vision  of  God  in  this  life  with  the 
triumphant  conclusion  of  his  own  poem.  But  here 
as  elsewhere  Dante  must  be  completed  and  ex 
plained  by  himself.  "  We  must  know  that  every 
thing  most  greatly  desires  its  own  perfection,  and 
in  that  its  every  desire  is  appeased,  and  by  that 
everything  is  desired.  [That  is,  the  one  is  drawn 
toward,  the  other  draws.]  And  this  is  that  desire 
which  makes  every  delight  maimed,  for  no  delight 
is  so  great  in  this  life  that  it  can  take  away  from 
the  soul  this  thirst  so  that  desire  remain  not  in  the 
thought." l  "  And  since  it  is  most  natural  to  wish 
to  be  in  God,  the  human  soul  naturally  wills  it 
with  all  longing.  And  since  its  being  depends  on 
God  and  is  preserved  thereby,  it  naturally  desires 
and  wills  to  be  united  with  God  in  order  to  fortify 
its  being.  And  since  in  the  goodnesses  of  human 
nature  is  shown  some  reason  for  those  of  the  Divine, 
it  follows  that  the  human  soul  unites  itself  in  a 
spiritual  way  with  those  so  much  the  more  strongly 
and  quickly  as  they  appear  more  perfect,  and  this 
appearance  happens  according  as  the  knowledge  of 
the  soul  is  clear  or  impeded.  And  this  union  is 
what  we  call  Love,  whereby  may  be  known  what  is 
within  the  soul,  seeing  those  it  outwardly  loves. 
.  .  .  And  the  human  soul  which  is  ennobled  with 
the  ultimate  potency,  that  is,  reason,  participates 
in  the  Divine  nature  after  the  manner  of  an  eternal 
Intelligence,  because  the  soul  is  so  ennobled  and 

1  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  6. 


DANTE  189 

denuded  of  matter  in  that  sovran  potency  that  the 
Divine  light  shines  in  it  as  in  an  angel." 1  This 
union  with  God  may  therefore  take  place  before 
the  warfare  of  life  is  over,  but  is  only  possible  for 
souls  perfettamente  naturati,  perfectly  endowed  by 
nature.2  This  depends  on  the  virtue  of  the  gener 
ating  soul  and  the  concordant  influence  of  the 
planets.  "  And  if  it  happen  that  through  the  pu 
rity  of  the  recipient  soul,  the  intellectual  virtue  be 
well  abstracted  and  absolved  from  every  corporeal 
shadow,  the  Divine  bounty  is  multiplied  in  it  as  in 
a  thing  sufficient  to  receive  the  same."3  "And 
there  are  some  who  believe  that  if  all  the  aforesaid 
virtues  [powers]  should  unite  for  the  production 
of  a  soul  in  their  best  disposition,  so  much  of  the 
Deity  would  descend  into  it  that  it  would  be  al 
most  another  incarnate  God."  4  Did  Dante  believe 
himself  to  be  one  of  these  ?  He  certainly  gives  us 
reason  to  think  so.  He  was  born  under  fortunate 
stars,  as  he  twice  tells  us,5  and  he  puts  the  middle 
of  his  own  life  at  the  thirty-fifth  year,  which  is  the 
period  he  assigns  for  it  in  the  diviner  sort  of  men.6 
The  stages  of  Dante's  intellectual  and  moral 

1  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  2.  By  potenzia  and  potenza  Dante  means 
the  faculty  of  receiving  influences  or  impressions.  (Paradiso, 
XIII.  61 ;  XXIX.  34.)  Reason  is  the  "  sovran  potency"  because 
it  makes  us  capable  of  God. 

2  "  O  thou  well-born,  unto  whom  Grace  concedes 
To  see  the  thrones  of  the  Eternal  triumph, 
Or  ever  yet  the  warfare  be  abandoned." 

(Paradiso,  V.  115-118.) 
3  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  21.  -      *  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  21. 

5  Inferno,  XV.  55,  56;  Paradiso,  XXII.  112-117. 

6  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  23  (cf.  Inferno,  I.  1). 


190  DANTE 

growth  may,  we  think,  be  reckoned  with  some  ap 
proach  to  exactness  from  data  supplied  by  himself. 
In  the  poems  of  the  Vita  Nuova,  Beatrice,  until 
her  death,  was  to  him  simply  a  poetical  ideal,  a 
type  of  abstract  beauty,  chosen  according  to  the 
fashion  of  the  day  after  the  manner  of  the  Proven- 
93!  poets,  but  in  a  less  carnal  sense  than  theirs. 
"  And  by  the  fourth  nature  of  animals,  that  is,  the 
sensitive,  man  has  another  love  whereby  he  loves 
according  to  sensible  appearance,  even  as  a  beast. 
.  .  .  And  by  the  fifth  and  final  nature,  that  is,  the 
truly  human,  or,  to  speak  better,  angelic,  that  is, 
rational,  man  has  a  love  for  truth  and  virtue.  .  .  . 
Wherefore,  since  this  nature  is  called  mind,  I  said 
that  love  discoursed  in  my  mind  to  make  it  under 
stood  that  this  love  was  that  which  is  born  in  the 
noblest  of  natures,  that  is,  [the  love]  of  truth  and 
virtue,  and  to  shut  out  every  false  opinion  by  which 
it  might  be  suspected  that  my  love  was  for  the  de 
light  of  sense."  1  This  is  a  very  weighty  affirma 
tion,  made,  as  it  is,  so  deliberately  by  a  man  of 
Dante's  veracity,  who  would  and  did  speak  truth 
at  every  hazard.  Let  us  dismiss  at  once  and  for 
ever  all  the  idle  tales  of  Dante's  amours,  of  la 
Montanina,  Gentucca,  Pietra,  Lisetta,  and  the 
rest,  to  that  outer  darkness  of  impure  thoughts  la 
onde  la  stoltezza  dipartille.2  We  think  Miss  Eos 

1  Convito,  Tr.  IIL  c.  3  ;  Paradiso,  XVIIL  108-130. 

2  See  an  excellent  discussion  and  elucidation  of  this  matter  by 
Witte,  who  so  highly  deserves  the  gratitude  of   all  students  of 
Dante,  in  Dante  AlighierTs  Lyrische  Gedichte,  Theil  II.  pp.  48- 
57-    It  was  kindly  old  Boccaccio,  who,  without  thinking  any  harm, 
first  set  this   nonsense   a-going.     His  Life   of  Dante  is  mainly 


DANTE  191 

setti  a  little  hasty  in  allowing  that  in  the  years 
which  immediately  followed  Beatrice's  death  Dante 
gave  himself  up  "  more  or  less  to  sensual  gratifica 
tion  and  earthly  aim."  The  earthly  aim  we  in  a 
certain  sense  admit  ;  the  sensual  gratification  we 
reject  as  utterly  inconsistent,  not  only  with  Dante's 
principles,  but  with  his  character  and  indefatigable 
industry.  Miss  Rossetti  illustrates  her  position  by 
a  subtle  remark  on  "  the  lulling  spell  of  an  intel 
lectual  and  sensitive  delight  in  good  running  par 
allel  with  a  voluntary  and  actual  indulgence  in 
evil."  The  dead  Beatrice  beckoned  him  toward 
the  life  of  contemplation,  and  it  was  precisely  dur 
ing  this  period  that  he  attempted  to  find  happiness 

a  rhetorical  exercise.  After  making  Dante's  marriage  an  excuse 
for  revamping  all  the  old  slanders  against  matrimony,  he  adds 
gravely,  "  Certainly  I  do  not  affirm  these  things  to  have  happened 
to  Dante,  for  I  do  not  know  it,  though  it  be  true  that  (whether 
things  like  these  or  others  were  the  cause  of  it),  once  parted  froifl 
her,  he  would  never  come  where  she  was  nor  suffer  her  to  come 
where  he  was,  for  all  that  she  was  the  mother  of  several  children 
by  him."  That  he  did  not  come  to  her  is  not  wonderful,  for  he 
would  have  been  burned  alive  if  he  had.  Dante  could  not  send 
for  her  because  he  was  a  homeless  wanderer.  She  remained  in 
Florence  with  her  children  because  she  had  powerful  relations  and 
perhaps  property  there.  It  is  plain,  also,  that  what  Boccaccio 
says  of  Dante's  lussuria  had  no  better  foundation.  It  gave  him  a 
chance  to  turn  a  period.  He  gives  no  particulars,  and  his  general 
statement  is  simply  incredible.  Lionardo  Bruni  and  Vellutello 
long  ago  pointed  out  the  trifling  and  fictitious  character  of  this 
Life.  Those  familiar  with  Dante's  allegorical  diction  will  not 
lay  much  stress  on  the  literal  meaning  of  pargoletta  in  Purgatorio, 
XXXI.  59.  Gentucca,  of  course,  was  a  real  person,  one  of  those 
who  had  shown  hospitality  to  the  exile.  Dante  remembers  them 
all  somewhere,  for  gratitude  (which  is  quite  as  rare  as  genius) 
was  one  of  the  virtues  of  his  unforgetting  nature.  Boccaccio's 
Comment  is  later  and  far  more  valuable  than  the  Life. 


192  DANTE 

in  the  life  of  action.  "  Verily  it  is  to  be  known 
that  we  may  in  this  life  have  two  felicities,  follow 
ing  two  ways,  good  and  best,  which  lead  us  thither. 
The  one  is  the  active,  the  other  the  contemplative 
life,  the  which  (though  by  the  active  we  may  at 
tain,  as  has  been  said,  unto  good  felicity)  leads  us 
to  the  best  felicity  and  blessedness."  1  "  The  life 
of  my  heart,  that  is,  of  my  inward  self,  was  wont 
to  be  a  sweet  thought  which  went  many  times  to 
the  feet  of  God,  that  is  to  say,  in  thought  I  contem 
plated  the  kingdom  of  the  Blessed.  And  I  tell 
the  final  cause  why  I  mounted  thither  in  thought 
when  I  say,  *  Where  it  [the  sweet  thought]  beheld 
a  lady  in  glory,'  that  I  might  make  it  understood 
that  I  was  and  am  certain,  by  her  gracious  revela 
tion,  that  she  was  in  heaven,  [not  on  earth,  as  I 
had  vainly  imagined,]  whither  I  went  in  thought, 
so  often  as  was  possible  to  me,  as  it  were  rapt."  2 
This  passage  exactly  answers  to  another  in  Purgar 
torio,  XXX.  109-138:  — 

"  Not  only  by  the  work  of  those  great  wheels 
That  destine  every  seed  unto  some  end, 
According  as  the  stars  are  in  conjunction, 
But  by  the  largess  of  celestial  graces, 

Such  had  this  man  become  in  his  New  Life 
Potentially,  that  every  righteous  habit 
Would  have  made  admirable  proof  in  him  ; 

Some  time  did  I  sustain  him  -with  my  look  (volto)  ; 
Revealing  unto  him  my  youthful  eyes, 
I  led  him  with  me  turned  in  the  right  way. 

1  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  17 ;  Purgatorio,  XXVII.  100-10& 

2  Convito,  Tr.  IL  c.  8. 


DANTE  193 

As  soon  as  ever  of  my  second  age 

I  was  upon  the  threshold  and  changed  life, 
Himself  from  me  he  took  and  gave  to  others. 

When  from  the  flesh  to  spirit  I  ascended, 

And  beauty  and  virtue  were  in  me  increased, 
I  was  to  him  less  dear  and  less  delightful ; 

And  into  ways  untrue  he  turned  his  steps, 
Pursuing  the  false  images  of  good, 
That  never  any  promises  fulfil  1 

Nor  prayer  for  inspiration  me  availed,2 

Sy  means  of  which  in  dreams  and  otherwise 
I  called  him  back,  so  little  did  he  heed  them. 

So  low  he  fell,  that  all  appliances 

For  his  salvation  were  already  short, 

Save  showing  him  the  people  of  perdition." 

Now  Dante  himself,  we  think,  gives  us  the  clue, 
by  following  which  we  may  reconcile  the  contra 
diction,  what  Miss  Rossetti  calls  "  the  astounding 
discrepancy,"  between  the  Lady  of  the  Vita  Nuova 
who  made  him  unfaithful  to  Beatrice,  and  the  same 
Lady  in  the  Convito,  who  in  attributes  is  identical 
with  Beatrice  herself.  We  must  remember  that 
the  prose  part  of  the  Convito,  which  is  a  comment 
on  the  Canzoni,  was  written  after  the  Canzoni 
themselves.  How  long  after  we  cannot  say  with 
certainty,  but  it  was  plainly  composed  at  intervals, 
a  part  of  it  probably  after  Dante  had  entered  upon 
old  age  (which  began,  as  he  tells  us,  with  the  forty- 
fifth  year),  consequently  after  1310.  Dante  had 

1  That  is,  wholly  fulfil,  rendono  intera. 

2  We  should  prefer  here, 

"  Nor  inspirations  won  by  prayer  availed," 

as  better  expressing  Ne  V  impetrare  spirazion.  Mr  Longfellow's 
translation  is  so  admirable  for  its  exactness  as  well  as  its  beauty 
that  it  may  be  thankful  for  the  minutest  criticism,  such  only  be 
ing  possible. 


194  DANTE 

then  written  a  considerable  part  of  the  Divina 
Commedia,  in  which  Beatrice  was  to  go  through 
her  final  and  most  ethereal  transformation  in  his 
mind  and  memory.  We  say  in  his  memory,  for 
such  idealizations  have  a  very  subtle  retrospective 
action,  and  the  new  condition  of  feeling  or  thought 
is  uneasy  till  it  has  half  unconsciously  brought  into 
harmony  whatever  is  inconsistent  with  it  in  the 
past.  The  inward  life  unwillingly  admits  any 
break  in  its  continuity,  and  nothing  is  more  com 
mon  than  to  hear  a  man,  in  venting  an  opinion 
taken  up  a  week  ago,  say  with  perfect  sincerity, 
"I  have  always  thought  so  and  so."  Whatever 
belief  occupies  the  whole  mind  soon  produces  the 
impression  on  us  of  having  long  had  possession  of 
it,  and  one  mode  of  consciousness  blends  so  insensi 
bly  with  another  that  it  is  impossible  to  mark  by 
an  exact  line  where  one  begins  and  the  other  ends. 
Dante  in  his  exposition  of  the  Canzoni  must  have 
been  subject  to  this  subtlest  and  most  deceitful  of 
influences.  He  would  try  to  reconcile  so  far  as  he 
conscientiously  could  his  present  with  his  past. 
This  he  could  do  by  means  of  the  allegorical  inter 
pretation.  "For  it  would  be  a  great  shame  to 
him,"  he  says  in  the  Vita  Nuova,  "  who  should 
poetize  something  under  the  vesture  of  some  figure 
or  rhetorical  color,  and  afterwards,  when  asked, 
could  not  strip  his  words  of  that  vesture  in  such 
wise  that  they  should  have  a  true  meaning."  Now 
in  the  literal  exposition  of  the  Canzone  beginning, 
**  Voi  che  intendendo  il  terzo  ciel  movcte,"  1  he 
1  Which  he  cites  in  the  Paradise,  VUL  37. 


DANTE 

tells  us  that  the  grandezza  of  the  Donna  Gentil 
was  "  temporal  greatness  "  (one  certainly  of  the 
felicities  attainable  by  way  of  the  vita  attiva),  and 
immediately  after  gives  us  a  hint  by  which  we  may 
comprehend  why  a  proud 1  man  might  covet  it. 
"  How  much  wisdom  and  how  great  a  persistence 
in  virtue  (abito  virtuoso)  are  hidden  for  want  of 
this  lustre !  "  2  When  Dante  reaches  the  Terres 
trial  Paradise  3  which  is  the  highest  felicity  of  this 
world,  and  therefore  the  consummation  of  the  Ac 
tive  Life,  he  is  welcomed  by  a  Lady  who  is  its 
symbol, 

"  Who  went  along 
Singing  and  culling  floweret  after  floweret," 

and  warming  herself  in  the  rays  of  Love,  or  "  ac 
tual  speculation,"  that  is,  "  where  love  makes  its 
peace  felt."  4  That  she  was  the  symbol  of  this  is 
evident  from  the  previous  dream  of  Dante, 5  in 
which  he  sees  Leah,  the  universally  accepted  type 
of  it, 

"  Walking  in  a  meadow, 

Gathering  flowers  ;  and  singing  she  was  saying, 
'  Know  whosoever  may  my  name  demand 

That  I  am  Leah,  and  go  moving  round 

My  beauteous  hands  to  make  myself  a  garland,'  " 

that  is  to  say,  of  good  works.  She,  having  "  washed 
him  thoroughly  from  sin,"  6 

1  Dante  confesses  his  guiltiness  of  the  sin  of  pride,  which  (as 
appears  by  the  examples  he  gives  of  it)  included  ambition,  in  Pur 
gatorio,  XIII.  136,  137. 

2  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  11.  8  Purgatorio,  XXVIII. 

4  Purgatorio,  XXVIII.  40-44 ;   Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  13. 

5  Purgatorio,  XXVII.  94-105. 

6  Psalm  li.  2.     "  And  therefore  I  say  that  her  [Philosophy's] 


196  DANTE 

"All  dripping  brought 
Into  the  dance  of  the  four  beautiful,"  1 

who  are  the  intellectual  virtues  Prudence,  Justice, 
Temperance,  and  Fortitude,  the  four  stars,  guides 
of  the  Practical  Life,  which  he  had  seen  when  he 
came  out  of  the  Hell  where  he  had  beheld  the  re 
sults  of  sin,  and  arrived  at  the  foot  of  the  Mount 
of  Purification.  That  these  were  the  special  vir 
tues  of  practical  goodness  Dante  had  already  told 
us  in  a  passage  before  quoted  from  the  Convito.2 
That  this  was  Dante's  meaning  is  confirmed  by 
what  Beatrice  says  to  him,3 

"  Short  while  shalt  thou  be  here  a  forester  (silvano) 
And  thou  shalt  be  with  me  f orevermore 
A  citizen  of  that  Rome  where  Christ  is  Roman  "  ; 

for  by  a  "  forest "  he  always  means  the  world  of  life 
and  action.4  At  the  time  when  Dante  was  writing 
the  Canzoni  on  which  the  Convito  was  a  comment, 
he  believed  science  to  be  the  "  ultimate  perfection 
itself,  and  not  the  way  to  it,"  5  but  before  the  Con 
vito  was  composed  he  had  become  aware  of  a  higher 
and  purer  light,  an  inward  light,  in  that  Beatrice, 
already  clarified  wellnigh  to  a  mere  image  of  the 
mind,  "  who  lives  in  heaven  with  the  angels,  and  on 
earth  with  my  soul."  6 

beauty,  that  is,  morality,  rains  flames  of  fire,  that  is,  a  righteous 
appetite  which  is  generated  in  the  love  of  moral  doctrine,  the 
which  appetite  removes  us  from  the  natural  as  well  as  other 
vices."  (Convito,  Tr.  HI.  c.  15.) 

1  Ptirgatorio,  XXXI.  103,  104.  2  Tr.  IV.  c.  22. 

8  Purgatorio,  XXXII.  100-102. 

4  Such  is  the  sdva  oscura  (Inferno,  I.  2),  such  the  selva  erronea 
di  questa  vita  (Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  24). 

6  Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  13.  6  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  2. 


DANTE  197 

So  spiritually  does   Dante  always  present  Bea 
trice  to  us,  even  where  most  corporeal,  as  in  the 
Vita  Nuova,  that  many,  like  Biscione  and  Rossetti, 
have  doubted  her  real  existence.     But  surely  we 
must  consent  to  believe  that  she  who  speaks  of 

"  The  fair  limbs  wherein 
I  was  enclosed,  which  scattered  are  in  earth," 

was  once  a  creature  of  flesh  and  blood,  — 

"  A  creature  not  too  bright  and  good 
For  human  nature's  daily  food." 

When  she  died,  Dante's  grief,  like  that  of  Con 
stance,  filled  her  room  up  with  something  fairer 
than  the  reality  had  ever  been.  There  is  no  ideal- 
izer  like  unavailing  regret,  all  the  more  if  it  be  a 
regret  of  fancy  as  much  as  of  real  feeling.  She 
early  began  to  undergo  that  change  into  something 
rich  and  strange  in  the  sea  1  of  his  mind  which  so 
completely  supernaturalized  her  at  last.  It  is  not 
impossible,  we  think,  to  follow  the  process  of  trans 
formation.  During  the  period  of  the  Convito  Can- 
zoni,  when  he  had  so  given  himself  to  study  that 
to  his  weakened  eyes  "  the  stars  were  shadowed 
with  a  white  blur,"  2  this  star  of  his  imagination 
was  eclipsed  for  a  time  with  the  rest.  As  his 
love  had  never  been  of  the  senses  (which  is  bes 
tial  3),  so  his  sorrow  was  all  the  more  ready  to  be 
irradiated  with  celestial  light,  and  to  assume  her  to 
be  the  transmitter  of  it  who  had  first  awakened  in 
him  the  nobler  impulses  of  his  nature,  — 

1  Mar  di  tutto  il  senno,  he  calls  Virgil  (Inferno,  VIII.  7).   Those 
familiar  with  his  own  works  will  think  the  phrase  singularly  ap 
plicable  to  himself. 

2  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  9.  8  Convito,  Tr.  HI.  c.  3. 


198  DANTE 

("  Such  had  this  man  become  in  his  New  Life 
Potentially,") 

and  given  him  the  first  hints  of  a  higher,  nay,  of 
the  highest  good.  With  that  turn  for  double  mean 
ing  and  abstraction  which  was  so  strong  in  him, 
her  very  name  helped  him  to  allegorize  her  into 
one  who  makes  blessed  (beat),  and  thence  the  step 
was  a  short  one  to  personify  in  her  that  Theosophy 
which  enables  man  to  see  God  and  to  be  mystically 
united  with  him  even  in  the  flesh.  Already,  in  the 
Vita  Nuova,1  she  appears  to  him  as  afterwards  in 
the  Terrestrial  Paradise,  clad  in  that  color  of  flame 
which  belongs  to  the  seraphim  who  contemplate 
God  in  himself,  simply,  and  not  in  his  relation  to 
the  Son  or  the  Holy  Spirit.2  When  misfortune 
came  upon  him,  when  his  schemes  of  worldly  activ 
ity  failed,  and  science  was  helpless  to  console,  as  it 
had  never  been  able  wholly  to  satisfy,  she  already 
rose  before  him  as  the  lost  ideal  of  his  youth,  re 
proaching  him  with  his  desertion  of  purely  spirit 
ual  aims.  It  is,  perhaps,  in  allusion  to  this  that  he 
fixes  the  date  of  her  death  with  such  minute  pre 
cision  on  the  9th  June,  1290,  most  probably  his 
own  twenty-fifth  birthday,  on  which  he  passed  the 
boundary  of  adolescence.3 

That  there  should  seem  to  be  a  discrepancy  be 
tween  the  Lady  of  the  Vita  JVuova  and  her  of  the 

1  Vita  Nuova,  XL.  2  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  6. 

8  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  24.  The  date  of  Dante's  birth  is  uncer 
tain,  but  the  period  he  assigns  for  it  (Paradise,  XXII.  112-117) 
extends  from  the  middle  of  May  to  the  middle  of  June.  If  we 
understand  Buti's  astrological  comment,  the  day  should  fall  in 
June  rather  than  May. 


DANTE  199 

Convito,  Dante  himself  was  already  aware  when 
writing  the  former  and  commenting  it.  Explain 
ing  the  sonnet  beginning  Gentil  pensier,  he  says, 
"  In  this  sonnet  I  make  two  parts  of  myself  ac 
cording  as  my  thoughts  were  divided  in  two.  The 
one  part  I  call  heart,  that  is,  the  appetite,  the 
other  soul,  that  is,  reason.  ...  It  is  true  that 
in  the  preceding  sonnet  I  take  side  with  the  heart 
against  the  eyes  [which  were  weeping  for  the  lost 
Beatrice],  and  that  appears  contrary  to  what  I 
say  in  the  present  one ;  and  therefore  I  say  that 
in  that  sonnet  also  I  mean  by  my  heart  the  appe 
tite,  because  my  desire  to  remember  me  of  my 
most  gentle  Lady  was  still  greater  than  to  behold 
this  one,  albeit  I  had  already  some  appetite  for 
her,  but  slight  as  should  seem:  whence  it  ap 
pears  that  the  one  saying  is  not  contrary  to  the 
other." l  When,  therefore,  Dante  speaks  of  the 
love  of  this  Lady  as  the  " adversary  of  Reason" 
he  uses  the  word  in  its  highest  sense,  not  as  under 
standing  (Intellectus),  but  as  synonymous  with 
soul.  Already,  when  the  latter  part  of  the  Vita 
JWuova,  nay,  perhaps  the  whole  of  the  explanatory 
portion  of  it,  was  written,  the  plan  of  the  Corn- 
media  was  complete,  a  poem  the  higher  aim  of 
which  was  to  keep  the  soul  alive  both  in  this  world 
and  for  the  next.  As  Dante  tells  us,  the  contra 
diction  in  his  mind  was,  though  he  did  not  become 
aware  of  it  till  afterwards,  more  apparent  than  real. 

1  Vita  Nuova,  XXXIX.  Compare  for  a  different  view,  The 
New  Life  of  Dante,  an  Essay  with  Translations,  by  C.  E.  Norton 
pp.  92  et  seq. 


200  DANTE 

He  sought  consolation  in  study,  and,  failing  to  find 
it  in  Learning  (saewza),  lie  was  led  to  seek  it  in 
Wisdom  (sapienza),  which  is  the  love  of  God  and 
the  knowledge  of  him.1  He  had  sought  happiness 
through  the  understanding  ;  he  was  to  find  it 
through  intuition.  The  lady  Philosophy  (accord 
ing  as  she  is  moral  or  intellectual)  includes  both. 
Her  gradual  transfiguration  is  exemplified  in  pas 
sages  already  quoted.  The  active  life  leads  indi 
rectly  by  a  knowledge  of  its  failures  and  sins  (In- 
,  or  directly  by  a  righteous  employment  of  it 


1  There  is  a  passage  in  the  Convito  (Tr.  III.  c.  15)  in  which 
Dante  seems  clearly  to  make  the  distinction  asserted  above,  "  And 
therefore  the  desire  of  man  is  limited  in  this  life  to  that  knowledge 
(scienzia)  -which  may  here  be  had,  and  passes  not  save  by  error 
that  point  which  is  beyond  our  natural  understanding.  And  so  is 
limited  and  measured  in  the  angelic  nature  the  amount  of  that 
wisdom  which  the  nature  of  each  is  capable  of  receiving.1'  Man 
is,  according  to  Dante,  superior  to  the  angels  in  this,  that  he  is 
capable  both  of  reason  and  contemplation,  while  they  are  confined 
to  the  latter.  That  Beatrice's  reproaches  refer  to  no  human  par- 
goletta,  the  context  shows,  where  Dante  asks, 

"  But  wherefore  so  beyond  my  power  of  sight 
Soars  your  desirable  discourse,  that  aye 
The  more  I  strive,  so  much  the  more  I  lose  it  ? 
'  That  thou  mayst  recognize,'  she  said,  '  the  school 

Which  thou  hast  followed,  and  mayst  see  how  far 
Its  doctrine  follows  after  my  discourse, 
And  mayst  behold  your  path  from  the  divine 
Distant  as  far  as  separated  is 
From  earth  the  heaven  that  highest  hastens  on.'  " 
Purgatorio,  XXXHI.  82-90. 

The  pargoletta  in  its  ordinary  sense  was  necessary  to  the  literal 
and  human  meaning,  but  it  is  shockingly  discordant  with  that 
non-natural  interpretation  which,  according  to  Dante's  repeated 
statement,  lays  open  the  true  and  divine  meaning. 


DANTE  201 

(Purgatorio'),  to  the  same  end.  The  use  of  the 
sciences  is  to  induce  in  us  the  ultimate  perfection, 
that  of  speculating  upon  truth;  the  use  of  the 
highest  of  them,  theology,  the  contemplation  of 
God.1  To  this  they  all  lead  up.  In  one  of  those 
curious  chapters  of  the  Convito,2  where  he  points 
out  the  analogy  between  the  sciences  and  the  hea 
vens,  Dante  tells  us  that  he  compares  moral  philoso 
phy  with  the  crystalline  heaven  or  Primum  Mo 
bile,  because  it  communicates  life  and  gives  motion 
to  all  the  others  below  it.  But  what  gives  motion 
to  the  crystalline  heaven  (moral  philosophy)  itself  ? 
"  The  most  fervent  appetite  which  it  has  in  each  of 
its  parts  to  be  conjoined  with  each  part  of  that 
most  divine  quiet  heaven  "  (Theology).3  Theol 
ogy,  the  divine  science,  corresponds  with  the  Em 
pyrean,  "  because  of  its  peace,  the  which,  through 
the  most  excellent  certainty  of  its  subject,  which  is 
God,  suffers  no  strife  of  opinions  or  sophistic  argu 
ments."  *  No  one  of  the  heavens  is  at  rest  but 
this,  and  in  none  of  the  inferior  sciences  can  we 
find  repose,  though  he  likens  physics  to  the  heaven 
of  the  fixed  stars,  in  whole  name  is  a  suggestion  of 
the  certitude  to  be  arrived  at  in  things  demonstrable. 
Dante  had  this  comparison  in  mind,  it  may  be  in 
ferred,  when  he  said, 

1  "  So  then  they  that  are  in  the  flesh  cannot  please  God.     But 
ye  are  not  in  the  flesh,  but  in  the  Spirit,  if  so  be  that  the  Spirit  of 
God  dwell  in  you."     (Romans  viii.  8,  9.) 

2  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  14,  15. 

8  Convito,  Tr.  II.  e.  4.     Compare  Paradiso,  I.  76,  77. 
*  "  Vain  babblings  and  oppositions  of  science  falsely  so  called." 
(1  Tim.  vi.  20.) 


202  DANTE 

"  Well  I  perceive  that  never  sated  is 

Our  intellect  unless  the  Truth  illume  it 
Beyond  which  nothing  true 1  expands  itself. 
It  rests  therein  as  wild  beast  in  his  lair, 

When  it  attains  it ;  and  it  can  attain  it ; 
If  not,  then  each  desire  would  frustrate  he. 
Therefore  springs  up,  in  fashion  of  a  shoot, 

Doubt  at  the  foot  of  truth  ;  and  this  is  nature, 
Which  to  the  top  from  height  to  height  impels  us."2 

The  contradiction,  as  it  seems  to  us,  resolves  itself 
into  an  essential,  easily  apprehensible,  if  mystical, 
unity.  Dante  at  first  gave  himself  to  the  study  of 
the  sciences  (after  he  had  lost  the  simple,  unques 
tioning  faith  of  youth)  as  the  means  of  arriving  at 
certainty.  From  the  root  of  every  truth  to  which 
he  attained  sprang  this  sucker  (rampollo)  of  doubt, 
drawing  out  of  it  the  very  sap  of  its  life.  In  this 
way  was  Philosophy  truly  an  adversary  of  his  soul, 
and  the  reason  of  his  remorse  for  fruitless  studies 
which  drew  him  away  from  the  one  that  alone  was 
and  could  be  fruitful  is  obvious  enough.  But  by 
and  by  out  of  the  very  doubt  came  the  sweetness  3 
of  a  higher  and  truer  insight.  He  became  aware 
that  there  were  "things* in  heaven  and  earth  un 
dreamt  of  in  your  philosophy,"  as  another  doubter 
said,  who  had  just  finished  his  studies,  but  could 
not  find  his  way  out  of  the  scepticism  they  engen 
dered  as  Dante  did. 

"  Insane  is  he  who  hopeth  that  our  reason 
Can  traverse  the  illimitable  way, 
Which  the  one  Substance  in  three  Persons  follows ! 

1  That  is,  no  partial  truth.  2  Paradiso,  IV.  124-132. 

"  Out  of  the  eater  came  forth  meat,  and  out  of  the  strong 
came  forth  sweetness."     (Judges  xiv.  14.) 


DANTE  203 

Mortals,  remain  contented  at  the  Quia  ; 

For  if  ye  had  been  able  to  see  all, 

No  need  there  were  [had  been]  for  Mary  to  give  birth. 
And  ye  have  seen  desiring  without  fruit 

Those  whose  desire  would  have  been  quieted, 

Which  evermore  is  given  them  for  a  grief. 
I  speak  of  Aristotle  and  of  Plato 

And  others  many."  1 

Whether  at  the  time  when  the  poems  of  the  Vita 
JVuova  were  written  the  Lady  who  withdrew  him 
for  a  while  from  Beatrice  was  (which  we  doubt) 
a  person  of  flesh  and  blood  or  not,  she  was  no 

1  Purgatorio,  III.  34-44.  The  allusions  in  this  passage  are  all 
to  sayings  of  Saint  Paul,  of  whom  Dante  was  plainly  a  loving 
reader.  "  Remain  contented  at  the  Quia,"  that  is,  be  satisfied 
with  knowing  that  things  are,  without  inquiring  too  nicely  how  or 
why.  "  Being  justified  by  faith  we  have  peace  with  God  ' '  (Rom. 
v.  1).  Infinita  via:  "O  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the 
wisdom  and  knowledge  of  God !  How  unsearchable  are  his  judg 
ments,  and  his  ways  past  finding  out !  "  (Rom.  xi.  33.)  Aristotle 
and  Plato :  "  For  the  wrath  of  God  is  revealed  from  heaven 
dguinst  all  ungodliness  and  unrighteousness  of  men  who  hold  the 
truth  in  unrighteousness.  .  .  .  For  the  invisible  things  of  him  from 
the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by 
the  things  that  are  made,  even  his  eternal  power  and  Godhead,  so 
that  they  are  without  excuse.  Because  that  when  they  knew  God, 
they  glorified  him  not  as  God,  neither  were  thankful,  but  became 
vain  in  their  imaginations,  and  their  foolish  heart  was  darkened  " 
(Rom.  i.  18-21).  He  refers  to  the  Greeks.  The  Epistle  to  the 
Romans,  by  the  way,  would  naturally  be  Dante's  favorite.  Aa 
Saint  Paul  made  the  Law,  so  he  would  make  Science,  "our 
schoolmaster  to  bring  us  unto  Christ,  that  we  might  be  justified 
by  faith  "  (Gal.  iii.  24).  He  puts  Aristotle  and  Plato  in  his  In 
ferno,  because  they  did  not  "  adore  God  duly  "  (Inferno,  IV.  38), 
that  is,  they  "  held  the  truth  in  unrighteousness.''  Yet  he  calls 
Aristotle  "  the  master  and  guide  of  human  reason  "  ( Convito,  Tr. 
IV.  c.  6),  and  Plato  "a  most  excellent  man"  (Convito,  Tr.  II. 
c.  5).  Plato  and  Aristotle,  like  all  Dante's  figures,  are  types.  We 
must  disengage  our  thought  from  the  individual,  and  fix  it  on  the 
genus. 


204  DANTE 

longer  so  when  the  prose  narrative  was  composed. 
Any  one  familiar  with  Dante's  double  meanings 
will  hardly  question  that  by  putting  her  at  a  win 
dow,  which  is  a  place  to  look  out  of ,  he  intended 
to  imply  that  she  personified  Speculation,  a  word 
which  he  uses  with  a  wide  range  of  meaning,  some 
times  as  looking  for,  sometimes  as  seeing  (like 
Shakespeare's 

"  There  is  no  speculation  in  those  eyes  "), 

sometimes  as  intuition,  or  the  beholding  all  things 
in  God,  who  is  the  cause  of  all.  This  is  so  obvious, 
and  the  image  in  this  sense  so  familiar,  that  we  are 
surprised  it  should  have  been  hitherto  unremarked. 
It  is  plain  that,  even  when  the  Vita  Nuova  was 
written,  the  Lady  was  already  Philosophy,  but 
philosophy  applied  to  a  lower  range  of  thought,  not 
yet  ascended  from  flesh  to  spirit.  The  Lady  who 
seduced  him  was  the  science  which  looks  for  truth 
in  second  causes,  or  even  in  effects,  instead  of  seek 
ing  it,  where  alone  it  can  be  found,  in  the  First 
Cause ;  she  was  the  Philosophy  which  looks  for 
happiness  in  the  visible  world  (of  shadows),  and 
not  in  the  spiritual  (and  therefore  substantial) 
world.  The  guerdon  of  his  search  was  doubt. 
But  Dante,  as  we  have  seen,  made  his  very  doubts 
help  him  upward  toward  certainty ;  each  became  a 
round  in  the  ladder  by  which  he  climbed  to  clearer 
and  clearer  vision  till  the  end.1  Philosophy  had 

1  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  Dante  has  typified  the  same  thing 
•when  he  describes  how  Reason  (Virgil)  first  carries  him  down  by 
clinging  to  the  fell  of  Satan,  and  then  in  the  same  way  upwards 
again  a  riveder  le  stelle.  Satan  is  the  symbol  of  materialism,  fixed 
at  the  point 


DANTE  205 

made  him  forget  Beatrice  ;  it  was  Philosophy  who 
was  to  bring  him  back  to  her  again,  washed  clean 
in  that  very  stream  of  forgetfulness  that  had  made 
an  impassable  barrier  between  them.1  Dante  had 
known  how  to  find  in  her  the  gift  of  Achilles's 
lance, 

"  Which  used  to  be  the  cause 
First  of  a  sad  and  then  a  gracious  boon."  2 

There  is  another  possible,  and  even  probable,  the 
ory  which  would  reconcile  the  Beatrice  of  the  Pur- 
gatorio  with  her  of  the  Vita  JVuova.  Suppose 
that  even  in  the  latter  she  signified  Theology,  or  at 
least  some  influence  that  turned  his  thoughts  to 
God  ?  Pietro  di  Dante,  commenting  the  pargoletta 
passage  in  the  Purgatorio,  says  expressly  that  the 
poet  had  at  one  time  given  himself  to  the  study  of 
theology  and  deserted  it  for  poesy  and  other  mun 
dane  sciences.  This  must  refer  to  a  period  begin- 

"  To  which  things  heavy  draw  from  every  side  " ; 
as  God  is  Light  and  Warmth,  so  is  he  "cold  obstruction";  the 
very  effort  which  he  makes  to  rise  by  the  motion  of  his  wings  be 
gets  the  chilly  blast  that  freezes  him  more  immovably  in  his  place 
of  doom.  The  danger  of  all  science  save  the  highest  (theology) 
was  that  it  led  to  materialism.  There  appears  to  have  been  a 
great  deal  of  it  in  Florence  in  the  time  of  Dante.  Its  followers 
called  themselves  Epicureans,  and  burn  in  living  tombs  (Inferno, 
X.).  Dante  held  them  in  special  horror.  "  Of  all  bestialities  that 
is  the  most  foolish  and  vile  and  hurtful  which  believes  there  is  no 
other  life  after  this."  "  And  I  so  believe,  so  affirm,  and  so  am 
certain  that  we  pass  to  another  better  life  after  this"  (Convito, 
Tr.  II.  c.  9).  It  is  a  fine  divination  of  Carlyle  from  the  Non  han 
speranza  di  morte  that  "  one  day  it  had  risen  sternly  benign  in  the 
scathed  heart  of  Dante  that  he,  wretched,  never  resting,  worn  as 
he  was,  would  [should]  full  surely  rfie." 

1  Purgatorio,  XXXI.  103.  2  Inferno,  XXXI.  5,  6. 


206  DANTE 

ning  before  1290.  Again,  there  is  an  early  tra 
dition  that  Dante  in  his  youth  had  been  a  novice 
in  a  Franciscan  convent,  but  never  took  the  vows. 
Buti  affirms  this  expressly  in  his  comment  on  In 
ferno,  XVI.  106-123.  It  is  perhaps  slightly  con 
firmed  by  what  Dante  says  in  the  Convito,1  that 
"one  can  not  only  turn  to  Religion  by  making 
himself  like  in  habit  and  life  to  St.  Benedict,  St. 
Augustine,  St.  Francis,  and  St.  Dominic,  but  like 
wise  one  may  turn  to  good  and  true  religion  in  a 
state  of  matrimony,  for  God  wills  no  religion  in  us 
but  of  the  heart."  If  he  had  ever  thought  of  tak 
ing  monastic  vows,  his  marriage  would  have  cut 
short  any  such  intention.  If  he  ever  wished  to  wed 
the  real  Beatrice  Portinari,  and  was  disappointed, 
might  not  this  be  the  time  when  his  thoughts  took 
that  direction  ?  If  so,  the  impulse  came  indirectly, 
at  least,  from  her. 

We  have  admitted  that  Beatrice  Portinari  was  a 
real  creature, 

"  Col  sangue  suo  e  con  le  sue  ginnture  "  ; 

but  how  real  she  was,  and  whether  as  real  to  the 
poet's  memory  as  to  his  imagination,  may  fairly  be 
questioned.  She  shifts,  as  the  controlling  emotion 
or  the  poetic  fitness  of  the  moment  dictates,  from  a 
woman  loved  and  lost  to  a  gracious  exhalation  of 
all  that  is  fairest  in  womanhood  or  most  divine  in 
the  soul  of  man,  and  ere  the  eye  has  defined  the 
new  image  it  has  become  the  old  one  again,  or  an 
other  mingled  of  both. 

i  Tr.  IV.  c.  2& 


DANTE  207 

"  Nor  one  nor  other  seemed  now  what  he  was ; 
E'en  as  proceedeth  on  before  the  flame 

Upward  along  the  paper  a  brown  color, 

Which  is  not  black  as  yet,  and  the  white  dies." 1 

As  the  mystic  Griffin  in  the  eyes  of  Beatrice  (her 
demonstrations),  so  she  in  his  own, 

"  Now  with  the  one,  now  with  the  other  nature ; 
Think,  Reader,  if  within  myself  I  marvelled 
When  I  beheld  the  thing  itself  stand  still 
And  in  its  image  it  transformed  itself."2 

At  the  very  moment  when  she  had  undergone  her 
most  sublimated  allegorical  evaporation,  his  in 
stinct  as  poet,  which  never  failed  him,  realized  her 
into  woman  again  in  those  scenes  of  almost  un- 
approached  pathos  which  make  the  climax  of  his 
Purgatorio.  The  verses  tremble  with  feeling  and 
shine  with  tears.3  Beatrice  recalls  her  own  beauty 

1  Inferno,  XXV.  64-67.  2  Purgatorio,  XXXI.  123-126. 

3  Spenser,  who  had,  like  Dante,  a  Platonizing  side,  and  who  was 
probably  the  first  English  poet  since  Chaucer  that  had  read  the 
Commedia,  has  imitated  the  pictorial  part  of  these  passages  in  the 
Faerie  Queene  (B.  VI.  c.  10).  He  has  turned  it  into  a  com 
pliment,  and  a  very  beautiful  one,  to  a  living  mistress.  It  is  in 
structive  to  compare  the  effect  of  his  purely  sensuous  verses  with 
that  of  Dante's,  which  have  such  a  wonderful  reach  behind  them. 
They  are  singularly  pleasing,  but  they  do  not  stay  by  us  as  those 
of  his  model  had  done  by  him.  Spenser  was,  as  Milton  called 
him,  a  ' '  sage  and  serious  poet "  ;  he  would  be  the  last  to  take 
offence  if  we  draw  from  him  a  moral  not  without  its  use  now  that 
Priapus  is  trying  to  persuade  us  that  pose  and  drapery  will  make 
him  as  good  rs  Urania.  Better  far  the  naked  nastiness ;  the 
more  covert  the  indecency,  the  more  it  shocks.  Poor  old  god  of 
gardens  !  Innocent  as  a  clownish  symbol,  he  is  simply  disgusting 
as  an  ideal  of  art.  In  the  last  century,  they  set  him  up  in  Ger 
many  and  in  France  as  befitting  an  era  of  enlightenment,  the  light 
of  which  came  too  manifestly  from  the  wrong  quarter  to  be  long 
endurable. 


208  DANTE 

with  a  pride  as  natural  as  that  of  Fair  Annie  in 
the  old  ballad,  and  compares  herself  as  advanta 
geously  with  the  "  brown,  brown  bride  "  who  had 
supplanted  her.  If  this  be  a  ghost,  we  do  not  need 
be  told  that  she  is  a  woman  still.1  We  must  re 
member,  however,  that  Beatrice  had  to  be  real  that 
she  might  be  interesting,  to  be  beautiful  that  her 
goodness  might  be  persuasive,  nay,  to  be  beautiful 
at  any  rate,  because  beauty  has  also  something  in 

1  This  touch  of  nature  recalls  another.  The  Italians  claim  hu 
mor  for  Dante.  We  have  never  been  able  to  find  it,  unless  it  be 
in  that  passage  (Inferno,  XV.  119)  where  Brunetto  Latini  lingers 
under  the  burning  shower  to  recommend  his  Tesoro  to  his  former 
pupil.  There  is  a  comical  touch  of  nature  in  an  author's  solici 
tude  for  his  little  work,  not,  as  in  Fielding's  case,  after  its,  but 
his  own  damnation.  We  are  not  sure,  but  we  fancy  we  catch  the 
momentary  flicker  of  a  smile  across  those  serious  eyes  of  Dante's. 
There  is  something  like  humor  in  the  opening  verses  of  the  XVI. 
Paradiso,  where  Dante  tells  us  how  even  in  heaven  he  could  not 
help  glorying  in  being  gently  born,  —  he  who  had  devoted  a  Can 
zone  and  a  book  of  the  Convito  to  proving  that  nobility  consisted 
wholly  in  virtue.  But  there  is,  after  all,  something  touchingly 
natural  in  the  feeling.  Dante,  unjustly  robbed  of  his  property, 
and  with  it  of  the  independence  so  dear  to  him,  seeing 
"  Needy  nothings  trimmed  in  jollity, 
And  captive  Good  attending  Captain  111," 

•would  naturally  fall  back  on  a  distinction  which  money  could 
neither  buy  nor  replace.  There  is  a  curious  passage  in  the  Con 
vito  which  shows  how  bitterly  he  resented  his  undeserved  poverty. 
He  tells  us  that  buried  treasure  commonly  revealed  itself  to  the 
bad  rather  than  the  good.  "  Verily  I  saw  the  place  on  the  flanks 
of  a  mountain  in  Tuscany  called  Falterona,  where  the  basest  pea 
sant  of  the  whole  countryside  digging  found  there  more  than  a 
bushel  of  pieces  of  the  finest  silver,  which  perhaps  had  awaited 
him  more  than  a  thousand  years."  (Tr.  IV.  c.  11.)  One  can  see 
the  grimness  of  his  face  as  he  looked  and  thought,  "how  salt  a 
savor  hath  the  bread  of  others !  " 


DANTE  209 

it  of  divine.  Dante  has  told,  in  a  passage  already 
quoted,  that  he  would  rather  his  readers  should 
find  his  doctrine  sweet  than  his  verses,  but  he  had 
his  relentings  from  this  Stoicism. 

"  Canzone,  I  believe  those  will  be  rare 
Who  of  thine  inner  sense  can  master  all, 
Such  toil  it  costs  thy  native  tongue  to  learn ; 
Wherefore,  if  ever  it  perchance  befall 
That  thou  in  presence  of  such  men  shouldst  fare 
As  seem  not  skilled  thy  meaning  to  discern, 
I  pray  thee  then  thy  grief  to  comfort  turn, 
Saying  to  them,  '  O  thou  my  new  delight, 
Take  heed  at  least  how  fair  I  am  to  sight.'  "  1 

We  believe  all  Dante's  other  Ladies  to  have  been 
as  purely  imaginary  as  the  Dulcinea  of  Don  Qui 
xote,  useful  only  as  motives,  but  a  real  Beatrice  is 
as  essential  to  the  human  sympathies  of  the  Divina 
Commedia  as  her  glorified  Idea  to  its  allegorical 
teaching,  and  this  Dante  understood  perfectly  well.2 
Take  her  out  of  the  poem,  and  the  heart  of  it  goes 
with  her ;  take  out  her  ideal,  and  it  is  emptied  of 
its  soul.  She  is  the  menstruum  in  which  letter 
and  spirit  dissolve  and  mingle  into  unity.  Those 
who  doubt  her  existence  must  find  Dante's  graceful 
sonnet 3  to  Guido  Cavalcanti  as  provoking  as  San- 
cho's  story  of  his  having  seen  Dulcinea  winnowing 
wheat  was  to  his  master,  "  so  alien  is  it  from  all 

1  L' Envoi  of  Canzone  XIV.  of  the  Canzoniere,  I.  of  the  Convito. 
Dante  cites  the  first  verse  of  this  Canzone,  Paradiso,  VIII.  37. 

2  How  Dante  himself  could  allegorize  even  historical  person 
ages  may  be  seen  in  a  curious  passage  of  the  Convito  (Tr.  IV.  c. 
28),  where,  commenting  on  a  passage  of  Lucan,  he  treats  Marcia 
and  Cato  as  mere  figures  of  speech. 

3  II.  of  the  Canzoniere.    See  Fraticelli's  preface. 


210  DANTE 

that  which  eminent  persons,  who  are  constituted 
and  preserved  for  other  exercises  and  entertain 
ments,  do  and  ought  to  do." l  But  we  should  al 
ways  remember  in  reading  Dante  that  with  him  the 
allegorical  interpretation  is  the  true  one  (verace 
sposizione),  and  that  he  represents  himself  (and 
that  at  a  time  when  he  was  known  to  the  world 
only  by  his  minor  poems)  as  having  made  right 
eousness  (rettitudine,  in  other  words,  moral  philos 
ophy)  the  subject  of  his  verse.2  Love  with  him 
seems  first  to  have  meant  the  love  of  truth  and  the 
search  after  it  (speculazione),  and  afterwards  the 
contemplation  of  it  in  its  infinite  source  (specula- 
zione  in  its  higher  and  mystical  sense.)  This  is 
the  divine  love  "  which  where  it  shines  darkens  and 
wellnigh  extinguishes  all  other  loves."  3  Wisdom 

1  Don  Quixote,  P.  II.  c.  viii. 

a  De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  1.  ii.  c.  2.  He  says  the  same  of  Giraud 
de  Borneil,  many  of  whose  poems  are  moral  and  even  devotional. 
See,  particularly,  "Al  honor  Dieu  torn  en  mon  chan"  (Ray- 
nouard,  Lex.  Earn.  I.  388),  "  Ben  es  dregz  pos  en  aital  port  "  (Ib. 
393),  "  Jois  sia  comensamens"  (Ib.  395),  and  "Be  veg  e  conosc  e 
say  "  (Ib.  398).  Another  of  his  poems  ("  Ar  ai  grant  joy,"  Ray- 
nouard,  Choix,  'III.  304),  may  possibly  be  a  mystical  profession  of 
love  for  the  Blessed  Virgin,  for  whom,  as  Dante  tells  us,  Beatrice 
had  a  special  devotion. 

3  Convito,  Tr.  III.  c.  14.  In  the  same  chapter  is  perhaps  an 
explanation  of  the  two  rather  difficult  verses  which  follow  that 
in  which  the  verace  speglio  is  spoken  of  (Paradiso,  XXVI.  107, 
108). 

"  Che  f  a  di  se  pareglie  1'  altre  cose 

E  nulls  face  lui  di  se  pareglio." 

Buti's  comment  is,  "  that  is,  makes  of  itself  a  receptacle  to  other 
things,  that  is,  to  all  things  that  exist,  which  are  all  seen  in  it." 
Dante  says  (ubi  supra),  "  The  descending  of  the  virtue  of  one 
thing  into  another  is  a  reducing  that  other  into  a  likeness  of  itself. 


DANTE  211 

is  the  object  of  it,  and  the  end  of  wisdom  to  con 
template  God  the  true  mirror  (v&race  speglio^  spec- 
ulum),  wherein  all  things  are  seen  as  they  truly 
are.  Nay,  she  herself  "is  the  brightness  of  the 
eternal  light,  the  unspotted  mirror  of  the  majesty 
of  God." ! 

.  .  .  Whence  we  see  that  the  sun  sending  his  ray  down  hither- 
ward  reduces  things  to  a  likeness  with  his  light  in  so  far  as  they 
are  able  by  their  disposition  to  receive  light  from  his  power.  So 
I  say  that  God  reduces  this  love  to  a  likeness  with  himself  as 
much  as  it  is  possible  for  it  to  be  like  him."  In  Provencal  pareilh 
means  like,  and  Dante  may  have  formed  his  word  from  it.  But 
the  four  earliest  printed  texts  read :  — 

"  Che  fa  di  se  pareglio  all'  altre  cose." 

Accordingly  we  are  inclined  to  think  that  the  next  verse  should  be 
corrected  thus :  — 

"  E  null  a  face  a  lui  di  se  pareglio." 

We  would  form  pareglio  from  parere  (a  something  in  which  things 
appear),  as.miraglio  from  mirare  (a  something  in  which  they  are 
seen).  God  contains  all  things  in  himself,  but  nothing  can  wholly 
contain  him.  The  blessed  behold  all  things  in  him  as  if  reflected, 
but  not  one  of  the  things  so  reflected  is  capable  of  his  image  in 
its  completeness.  This  interpretation  is  confirmed  by  Paradise, 
XIX.  49-51. 

"  E  quinci  appar  ch?  ogni  minor  natura 
E  corto  recettacolo  a  quel  bene 

Che  non  ha  fine,  e  se  con  se  misura." 

1  Wisdom  of  Solomon,  vii.  26,  quoted  by  Dante  (Conirito,  Tr. 
III.  c.  15).  There  are  other  passages  in  the  Wisdom  of  Solomon 
besides  that  just  cited  which  we  may  well  believe  Dante  to  have 
had  in  his  mind  when  writing  the  Canzone,  beginning,  — 

"  Amor  che  nella  mente  mi  ragiona," 

and  the  commentary  upon  it,  and  some  to  which  his  experience  of 
life  must  have  given  an  intenser  meaning.  The  writer  of  that 
book  also  personifies  Wisdom  as  the  mistress  of  his  soul:  "I 
loved  her  and  sought  her  out  from  my  youth,  I  desired  to  make 
her  my  spouse,  and  I  was  a  lover  of  her  beauty."  He  says  of 


212  DANTE 

There  are  two  beautiful  passages  in  the  Convito, 
which  we  shall  quote,  both  because  they  have,  as 
we  believe,  a  close  application  to  Dante's  own  ex 
perience,  and  because  they  are  good  specimens  of 

Wisdom  that  she  -was  "present  when  thou  (God)  madest  the 
•world,"  and  Dante  in  the  same  way  identifies  her  with  the  divine 
Logos,  citing  as  authority  the  "  beginning  of  the  Gospel  of  John." 
He  tells  us,  "I  perceived  that  I  could  not  otherwise  obtain  her 
except  God  gave  her  me,"  and  Dante  came  at  last  to  the  same 
conclusion.  Again,  "  For  the  very  true  beginning  of  her  is  the 
desire  of  discipline ;  and  the  care  of  discipline  is  love.  And  love 
is  the  keeping  of  her  laws ;  and  the  giving  heed  unto  her  laws  is 
the  assurance  of  incorruption."  But  who  can  doubt  that  he  read 
with  a  bitter  exultation,  and  applied  to  himself  passages  like 
these  which  follow  ?  "  When  the  righteous  fled  from  his  brother's 
wrath,  she  guided  him  in  right  paths,  showed  him  the  kingdom  of 
God,  and  gave  him  knowledge  of  holy  things.  She  defended  him 
from  his  enemies  and  kept  him  safe  from  those  that  lay  in  wait, 
.  .  .  that  he  might  know  that  godliness  is  stronger  than  all.  .  .  . 
She  forsook  him  not,  but  delivered  him  from  sin ;  she  went  down 
with  him  into  the  pit,  and  left  him  not  in  bonds  till  she  brought  him 
the  sceptre  of  the  kingdom,  .  .  .  and  gave  him  perpetual  glory." 
It  was,  perhaps,  from  this  book  that  Dante  got  the  hint  of  making 
his  punishments  and  penances  typical  of  the  sins  that  earned 
them.  "  Wherefore,  whereas  men  lived  dissolutely  and  unright 
eously,  thou  hast  tormented  them  with  their  own  abominations." 
Dante  was  intimate  with  the  Scriptures.  They  do  even  a  scholar 
no  harm.  M.  Victor  Le  Clerc,  in  his  Histoire  Litteraire  de  la 
France  au  quatorzieme  siecle  (torn.  ii.  p.  72),  thinks  it  "  not  impos 
sible  "  that  a  passage  in  the  Lamentations  of  Jeremiah,  para 
phrased  by  Dante,  may  have  been  suggested  to  him  by  Rutebeuf 
or  Tristan,  rather  than  by  the  prophet  himself !  Dante  would 
hardly  have  found  himself  so  much  at  home  in  the  company  of 
jongleurs  as  in  that  of  prophets.  Yet  he  was  familiar  with 
French  and  Provencal  poetry.  Beside  the  evidence  of  the  Vulgari 
Eloquio,  there  are  frequent  and  broad  traces  in  the  Commedia  of 
the  Roman  de  la  Rose,  slighter  ones  of  the  Chevalier  de  la  Cha- 
rette,  Guillaume  d' Orange,  and  a  direct  imitation  of  Bernard  de 
Ventadour. 


DANTE  213 

his  style  as  a  writer  of  prose.  In  the  manly  sim 
plicity  which  comes  of  an  earnest  purpose,  and  in 
the  eloquence  of  deep  conviction,  this  is  as  far  be 
yond  that  of  any  of  his  contemporaries  as  his  verse ; 
nay,  more,  has  hardly  been  matched  by  any  Italian 
from  that  day  to  this.  Illustrating  the  position 
that  "the  highest  desire  of  everything  and  the 
first  given  us  by  nature  is  to  return  to  its  first 
cause,"  he  says :  "  And  since  God  is  the  beginning 
of  our  souls  and  the  maker  of  them  like  unto  him 
self,  according  as  was  written,  '  Let  us  make  man 
in  our  image  and  likeness,'  this  soul  most  greatly 
desires  to  return  to  him.  And  as  a  pilgrim  who 
goes  by  a  way  he  has  never  travelled,  who  believes 
every  house  he  sees  afar  off  to  be  his  inn,  and  not 
finding  it  to  be  so  directs  his  belief  to  another,  and 
so  from  house  to  house  till  he  come  to  the  inn,  so 
our  soul  forthwith  on  entering  upon  the  new  and 
never-travelled  road  of  this  life  directs  its  eyes  to 
the  goal  of  its  highest  good,  and  therefore  believes 
whatever  thing  it  sees  that  seems  to  have  in  it  any 
good  to  be  that.  And  because  its  first  knowledge 
is  imperfect  by  reason  of  not  being  experienced 
nor  indoctrinated,  small  goods  seem  to  it  great. 
Wherefore  we  see  children  desire  most  greatly  an 
apple,  and  then  proceeding  further  on  desire  a 
bird,  and  then  further  yet  desire  fine  raiment,  and 
then  a  horse,  and  then  a  woman,  and  then  riches 
not  great,  and  then  greater  and  greater.  And  this 
befalls  because  in  none  of  these  things  it  finds  that 
which  it  goes  seeking,  and  thinks  to  find  it  further 
on.  By  which  it  may  be  seen  that  one  desirable 


214  DANTE 

stands  before  another  in  the  eyes  of  our  soul  in 
a  fashion  as  it  were  pyramidal,  for  the  smallest  at 
first  covers  the  whole  of  them,  and  is  as  it  were 
the  apex  of  the  highest  desirable,  which  is  God, 
as  it  were  the  base  of  all  ;  so  that  the  further  we 
go  from  the  apex  toward  the  base  the  desirables 
appear  greater  ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  human 
desires  become  wider  one  after  the  other.  Verily 
this  way  is  lost  through  error  as  the  roads  of  earth 
are ;  for  as  from  one  city  to  another  there  is  of 
necessity  one  best  and  straightest  way,  and  one 
that  always  leads  farther  from  it,  that  is,  the  one 
which  goes  elsewhere,  and  many  others,  some  less 
roundabout  and  some  less  direct,  so  in  human  life 
are  divers  roads  whereof  one  is  the  truest  and  an 
other  the  most  deceitful,  and  certain  ones  less  de 
ceitful,  and  certain  less  true.  And  as  we  see  that 
that  which  goes  most  directly  to  the  city  fulfils 
desire  and  gives  repose  after  weariness,  and  that 
which  goes  the  other  way  never  fulfils  it  and  never 
can  give  repose,  so  it  falls  out  in  our  life.  The 
good  traveller  arrives  at  the  goal  and  repose,  the 
erroneous  never  arrives  thither,  but  with  much 
weariness  of  mind,  always  with  greedy  eyes  looks 
before  him."1  If  we  may  apply  Dante's  own 
method  of  exposition  to  this  passage,  we  find  him 
telling  us  that  he  first  sought  felicity  in  knowledge, 

"  That  apple  sweet  which  through  so  many  branches 
The  care  of  mortals  goeth  in  pursuit  of,"  2 

then  in  fame,  a  bird  that  flits  before  us  as  we  fol- 

1  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  12. 

2  Purgatorio,  XXVU.  115,  116. 


DANTE  215 

low,1  then  in  being  esteemed  of  men  ("  to  be 
clothed  in  purple,  ...  to  sit  next  to  Darius,  .  .  . 
and  be  called  Darius  his  cousin  "),  then  in  power,2 
then  in  the  riches  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  larger  and 
larger  measure.3  He,  too,  had  found  that  there 
was  but  one  straight  road,  whether  to  the  Terres 
trial  Paradise  or  the  Celestial  City,  and  may  come 
to  question  by  and  by  whether  they  be  not  parallel 
one  with  the  other,  or  even  parts  of  the  same  road, 
by  which  only  repose  is  to  be  reached  at  last. 
Then,  when  in  old  age  "  the  noble  soul  returns  to 
God  as  to  that  port  whence  she  set  forth  on  the  sea 
of  this  life,  .  .  .  just  as  to  him  who  comes  from  a 
long  journey,  before  he  enters  into  the  gate  of  his 
city,  the  citizens  thereof  go  forth  to  meet  him,  so 
the  citizens  of  the  eternal  life  go  to  meet  her,  and 
do  so  because  of  her  good  deeds  and  contempla 
tions,  who,  having  already  betaken  herself  to  God, 

1  That  Dante  loved  fame  we  need  not  be  told.     He  several 
times  confesses  it,  especially  in  the  De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  I.  17. 
4 '  How  glorious  she  [the  Vulgar  Tongue]  makes  her  intimates  [/o- 
miliares,  those  of  her  household],  we  ourselves  have  known,  who 
in  the  sweetness  of  this  glory  put  our  exile  behind  our  backs." 

2  Dante  several  times  uses  the  sitting  a  horse  as  an  image  of 
rule.     See  especially  Purgatorio,   VI.  99,  and  Convito,  Tr.  IV. 
c.  9. 

3  "  O  the  depth  of  the  riches  both  of  the  wisdom  and  the  know 
ledge  of  God !  ' '    Dante  quotes  this  in  speaking  of  the  influence  of 
the  stars,   which,   interpreting  it  presently  "by  the  theological 
way,"  he  compares  to  that  of  the  Holy  Spirit.     "And  thy  coun 
sel  who  hath  known,  except  thou  give  wisdom  and  send  thy  Holy 
Spirit  from  above?"     (Wisdom  of  Solomon,  ix.  17.)     The   last 
words  of  the  Convito  are,  "  her  [Philosophy]  whose  proper  dwell 
ing  is  in  the  depths  of  the  Divine  mind."     The  ordinary  reading 
is  ragione  (reason),  but  it  seems  to  us  an  obvious  blunder  for  ma- 
gione  (mansion,  dwelling). 


216  DANTE 

seems  to  see  those  whom  she  believes  to  be  nigh 
unto  God."  l  This  also  was  to  be  the  experience 
of  Dante,  for  who  can  doubt  that  the  Paradiso 
was  something  very  unlike  a  poetical  exercise  to  him 
who  appeals  to  the  visions  even  of  sleep  as  proof  of 
the  soul's  immortality  ? 

When  did  his  soul  catch  a  glimpse  of  that  cer 
tainty  in  which  "  the  mind  that  museth  upon  many 
things  "  can  find  assured  rest  ?  We  have  already 
said  that  we  believe  Dante's  political  opinions  to 
have  taken  their  final  shape  and  the  De  Monarchia 
to  have  been  written  before  1300.2  That  the  revi 
sion  of  the  Vita  Nuova  was  completed  in  that  year 
seems  probable  from  the  last  sonnet  but  one,  which 
is  addressed  to  pilgrims  on  their  way  to  the  Santa 
Veronica  at  Rome.3  In  this  sonnet  he  still  laments 

1  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  28. 

2  He  refers  to  a  change  in  his  own  opinions  (lib.  ii.  §  1),  where 
he  says,  "  When  I  knew  the  nations  to  have  murmured  against 
the  preeminence  of  the  Roman  people,  and  saw  the  people  imag 
ining  Tain  things  as  I  myself  was  wont."    He  was  a  Guelph  by  in 
heritance,  he  became  a  Ghibelline  by  conviction. 

8  It  should  seem  from  Dante's  words  ( "  at  the  time  when  much 
people  went  to  see  the  blessed  image,"  and  "  ye  seem  to  come 
from  a  far-off  people  ")  that  this  was  some  extraordinary  occa 
sion,  and  what  so  likely  as  the  jubilee  of  1300  ?  (Compare  Para 
diso,  XXXI.  103-108.)  Dante's  comparisons  are  so  constantly 
drawn  from  actual  eyesight,  that  his  allusion  (Inferno,  XIII.  28- 
33)  to  a  device  of  Boniface  VIII.  for  passing  the  crowds  quietly 
across  the  bridge  of  Saint  Angelo,  renders  it  not  unlikely  that  he 
was  in  Rome  at  that  time,  and  perhaps  conceived  his  poem  there 
as  Giovanni  Villani  his  chronicle.  That  Rome  would  deeply  stir 
his  mind  and  heart  is  beyond  question.  "  And  certes  I  am  of  a 
firm  opinion  that  the  stones  that  stand  in  her  walls  are  worthy  of 
reverence,  and  the  soil  where  she  sits  worthy  beyond  what  is 
preached  and  admitted  of  men."  (Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  5.) 


DANTE  217 

Beatrice  as  dead ;  he  would  make  the  pilgrims 
share  his  grief.  It  is  the  very  folly  of  despairing 
sorrow,  that  calls  on  the  first  comer,  stranger 
though  he  be,  for  a  sympathy  which  none  can  fully 
give,  and  he  least  of  all.  But  in  the  next  sonnet, 
the  last  in  the  book,  there  is  a  surprising  change  of 
tone.  The  transfiguration  of  Beatrice  has  begun, 
and  we  see  completing  itself  that  natural  gradation 
of  grief  which  will  erelong  bring  the  mourner  to 
call  on  the  departed  saint  to  console  him  for  her 
own  loss.  The  sonnet  is  remarkable  in  more  senses 
than  one,  first  for  its  psychological  truth,  and  then 
still  more  for  the  light  it  throws  on  Dante's  inward 
history  as  poet  and  thinker.  Hitherto  he  had  cele 
brated  beauty  and  goodness  in  the  creature ;  hence 
forth  he  was  to  celebrate  them  in  the  Creator  whose 
praise  they  were.1  We  give  an  extempore  transla 
tion  of  this  sonnet,  in  which  the  meaning  is  pre 
served  so  far  as  is  possible  where  the  grace  is  left 
out.  We  remember  with  some  compunction  as  we 
do  it,  that  Dante  has  said,  "  know  every  one  that 

1  Beatrice,  loda  di  Dio  vera,  Inferno,  II.  103.  "Surely  vain  are 
all  men  by  nature  who  are  ignorant  of  God,  and  could  not  out  of 
the  g-ood  things  that  are  seen  know  him  that  is,  neither  by  con 
sidering  the  works  did  they  acknowledge  the  work-master.  .  .  . 
For,  being  conversant  in  his  works,  they  search  diligently  and  be 
lieve  their  sight,  because  the  things  are  beautiful  that  are  seen. 
Howbeit,  neither  are  they  to  be  pardoned."  (Wisdom  of  Solomon, 
xiii.  1,  7,  8.)  Non  adorar  debitamente  Dio.  "  For  the  invisible 
things  of  him  from  the  creation  of  the  world  are  clearly  seen,  be 
ing  understood  by  the  things  that  are  made,  even  his  eternal 
power  and  godhead;  so  that  they  are  without  excuse."  It  was 
these  ' '  invisible  things  ' '  whereof  Dante  was  beginning  to  get  a 
glimpse. 


218  DANTE 

nothing  harmonized  by  a  musical  band  can  be 
transmuted  from  its  own  speech  to  another  without 
breaking  all  its  sweetness  and  harmony," l  and 
Cervantes  was  of  the  same  mind : 2  — 

"  Beyond  the  sphere  that  hath  the  widest  gyre 
Passeth  the  sigh  8  that  leaves  my  heart  below  ; 
A  new  intelligence  doth  love  bestow 
On  it  with  tears  that  ever  draws  it  higher ; 
When  it  wins  thither  where  is  its  desire, 
A  Lady  it  beholds  who  honor  so 
And  light  receives,  that,  through  her  splendid  glow, 
The  pilgrim  spirit  *  sees  her  as  in  fire ; 
It  sees  her  such,  that,  telling  me  again 
I  understand  it  not,  it  speaks  so  low 
Unto  the  mourning  heart  that  bids  it  tell ; 
Its  speech  is  of  that  noble  One  I  know, 
For  '  Beatrice '  I  often  hear  full  plain, 
So  that,  dear  ladies,  I  conceive  it  well. ' ' 

No  one  can  read  this  in  its  connection  with  what 
goes  before  and  what  follows  without  feeling  that 
a  new  conception  of  Beatrice  had  dawned  upon  the 
mind  of  Dante,  dim  as  yet,  or  purposely  made  to 
seem  so,  and  yet  the  authentic  forerunner  of  the 
fulness  of  her  rising  as  the  light  of  his  day  and  the 

1  Convito,  Tr.  I.  c.  7. 

2  "  And  here  we  would  have  forgiven  Mr.  Captain  if  he  had  not 
betrayed  him  (traido,  traduttore,  traditore)   to  Spain  and  made 
him  a  Castilian,  for  he  took  away  much  of  his  native  worth,  and 
so  will  all  those  do  who  shall  undertake  to  turn  a  poem  into  an 
other  tongue ;  for  with  all  the  care  they  take  and  ability  they 
show,  they  will  never  reach  the  height  of  its  original  conception," 
says  the   Curate,  speaking   of  a  translation   of  Ariosto.     (Don 
Quixote,  P.  I.  c.  6.) 

8  In  his  own  comment  Dante  says,  "  I  tell  whither  goes  my 
thought,  calling  it  by  the  name  of  one  of  its  effects." 

*  Spirito  means  in  Italian  both  breath  (spirto  ed  acqua  fessi, 
Purgatorio,  XXX.  98)  and  spirit. 


DANTE  219 

guide  of  his  feet,  the  divine  wisdom  whose  glory 
pales  all  meaner  stars.  The  conception  of  a  poem 
in  which  Dante's  creed  in  politics  and  morals  should 
be  picturesquely  and  attractively  embodied,  and  of 
the  high  place  which  Beatrice  should  take  in  it, 
had  begun  vaguely  to  shape  itself  in  his  thought. 
As  he  brooded  over  it,  of  a  sudden  it  defined  itself 
clearly.  "  Soon  after  this  sonnet  there  appeared 
to  me  a  marvellous  vision 1  wherein  I  saw  things 
which  made  me  propose  not  to  say  more  of  that 
blessed  one  until  I  could  treat  of  her  more  wor 
thily.  And  to  arrive  at  that  I  study  all  I  can,  as 
she  verily  knows.  So  that,  if  it  be  the  pleasure  of 
Him  through  whom  all  things  live,  that  my  life 
hold  out  yet  a  few  years,  I  hope  to  say  that  of  her 
which  was  never  yet  said  of  any  (woman).  And 
then  may  it  please  Him  who  is  the  Lord  of  Cour 
tesy  that  my  soul  may  go  to  see  the  glory  of  her 
Lady,  that  is,  of  that  blessed  Beatrice  who  gloriously 
beholds  the  face  of  Him  qui  est  per  omnia  scecula 
benedictus."  It  was  the  method  of  presentation 
that  became  clear  to  Dante  at  this  time,  —  the  plan 
of  the  great  poem  for  whose  completion  the  expe 
rience  of  earth  and  the  inspiration  of  heaven  were 
to  combine,  and  which  was  to  make  him  lean  for 
many  years.2  The  doctrinal  scope  of  it  was  already 
determined.  Man,  he  tells  us,  is  the  only  creature 
who  partakes  at  once  of  the  corruptible  and  incor- 

1  By  visione  Dante  means  something  seen  waking  by  the  inner 
eye.     He  believed  also  that  dreams  were  sometimes  divinely  in 
spired,  and  argues  from  such  the  immortality  of  the  souL     ( Con 
vito,  Tr.  II.  c.  9. ) 

2  Paradiso,  XXV.  1-3. 


220  DANTE 

mptible  nature ;  "  and  since  every  nature  is  or 
dained  to  some  ultimate  end,  it  follows  that  the  end 
of  man  is  double.  And  as  among  all  beings  he 
alone  partakes  of  the  corruptible  and  incorrupti 
ble,  so  alone  among  all  beings  he  is  ordained  to  a 
double  end,  whereof  the  one  is  his  end  as  corrupti 
ble,  the  other  as  incorruptible.  That  unspeakable 
Providence  therefore  foreordered  two  ends  to  be 
pursued  by  man,  to  wit,  beatitude  in  this  life, 
which  consists  in  the  operation  of  our  own  virtue, 
and  is  figured  by  the  Terrestrial  Paradise,  and  the 
beatitude  of  life  eternal,  which  consists  in  a  frui 
tion  of  the  divine  countenance,  whereto  our  own 
virtue  cannot  ascend  unless  aided  by  divine  light, 
which  is  understood  by  the  Celestial  Paradise." 
The  one  we  attain  by  practice  of  the  moral  and 
intellectual  virtues  as  they  are  taught  by  philoso 
phers,  the  other  by  spiritual  teachings  transcending 
human  reason,  anil  the  practice  of  the  theological 
virtues  of  Faith,  Hope,  and  Charity.  For  one, 
Reason  suffices  ("  which  was  wholly  made  known 
to  us  by  philosophers  "),  for  the  other  we  need  the 
light  of  supernatural  truth  revealed  by  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  "  needful  for  us."  Men  led  astray  by 
cupidity  turn  their  backs  on  both,  and  in  their  bes 
tiality  need  bit  and  rein  to  keep  them  in  the  way. 
"  Wherefore  to  man  was  a  double  guidance  needful 
according  to  the  double  end,"  the  Supreme  Pontiff 
in  spiritual,  the  Emperor  in  temporal  things.1 

1  De  Monarchic,  lib.  iii.  §  ult.  See  the  whole  passage  in  Miss 
Rossetti,  p.  39.  It  is  noticeable  that  Dante  says  that  the  Pope  is 
to  lead  (by  example),  the  Emperor  to  direct  (by  the  enforcing  of 


DANTE  221 

But  how  to  put  this  theory  of  his  into  a  poetic 
form  which  might  charm  while  it  was  teaching? 
He  would  typify  Reason  in  Virgil  (who  would 
serve  also  as  a  symbol  of  political  wisdom  as  hav 
ing  celebrated  the  founding  of  the  Empire),  and 
the  grace  of  God  in  that  Beatrice  whom  he  had 
already  supernaturalized  into  something  which  pass- 
eth  all  understanding.  In  choosing  Virgil  he  was 
sure  of  that  interest  and  sympathy  which  his  in 
stinct  led  him  to  seek  in  the  predisposition  of  his 
readers,  for  the  popular  imagination  of  the  Middle 
Ages  had  busied  itself  particularly  with  the  Man- 
tuan  poet.  The  Church  had  given  him  a  quasi- 
orthodoxy  by  interpreting  his  jam  redit  et  virgo  as 
a  prophecy  of  the  birth  of  Christ.  At  Naples  he 
had  become  a  kind  of  patron  saint,  and  his  bones 
were  exhibited  as  relics.  Dante  himself  may  have 
heard  at  Mantua  the  hymn  sung  on  the  anniversary 
of  St.  Paul,  in  which  the  apostle  to  the  Gentiles  is 
represented  as  weeping  at  the  tomb  of  the  greatest 
of  poets.  Above  all,  Virgil  had  described  the  de 
scent  of  ^Eneas  to  the  under-world.  Dante's  choice 
of  a  guide  was  therefore,  in  a  certain  degree,  made 
for  him.  But  the  mere  Reason l  of  man  without 

justice).  The  duty,  we  are  to  observe,  was  a  double  but  not  a  di 
vided  one.  To  exemplify  this  unity  was  indeed  one  object  of  the 
Commedia. 

1  "  What  Reason  seeth  here 

Myself  [Virgil]  can  tell  thee  ;  beyond  that  await 

For  Beatrice,  since  'tis  a  work  of  Faith." 

(Purgatorio,  XVIII.  46-48 .) 

Beatrice  here  evidently  impersonates  Theology.  It  would  be  in 
teresting  to  know  what  was  the  precise  date  of  Dante's  theological 
studies.  The  earlier  commentators  all  make  him  go  to  Paris,  the 


222  DANTE 

the  illumination  of  divine  Grace  cannot  be  trusted, 
and  accordingly  the  intervention  of  Beatrice  was 
needed,  —  of  Beatrice,  as  Miss  Rossetti  admirably 
well  expresses  it,  "  already  transfigured,  potent  not 
only  now  to  charm  and  soothe,  potent  to  rule  ;  to 
the  Intellect  a  light,  to  the  Affections  a  compass 
and  a  balance,  a  sceptre  over  the  Will." 

The  wood  obscure  in  which  Dante  finds  himself 
is  the  world.1  The  three  beasts  who  dispute  his 
way  are  the  sins  that  most  easily  beset  us,  Pride, 
the  Lusts  of  the  Flesh,  and  Greed.  We  are  sur 
prised  that  Miss  Rossetti  should  so  localize  and 
confine  Dante's  meaning  as  to  explain  them  by 
Florence,  France,  and  Rome.  Had  he  written  in 
so  narrow  a  sense  as  this,  it  would  indeed  be  hard 
to  account  for  the  persistent  power  of  his  poem. 

great  fountain  of  such  learning,  after  his  banishment.  Boccaccio 
indeed  says  that  he  did  not  return  to  Italy  till  1311.  Wegele 
•(Dante's  Leben  und  Werke,  p.  85)  puts  the  date  of  his  journey  be 
tween  1292  and  1297.  Ozanam,  with  a  pathos  comically  touching 
to  the  academic  soul,  laments  that  poverty  compelled  hkn  to  leave 
the  university  without  the  degree  he  had  so  justly  earned.  He 
consoles  himself  with.tne  thought  that  "  there  remained  to  him 
an  incontestable  erudition  and  the  love  of  serious  studies."  (Dante 
et  la  philosophic  catholique,  p.  112.)  It  is  sad  that  we  cannot  write 
Dantes  Alighierius,  S.  T.  D. !  Dante  seems  to  imply  that  he  be 
gan  to  devote  himself  to  Philosophy  and  Theology  shortly  after 
Beatrice's  death.  (Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  13.)  He  compares  himself 
to  one  who,  "seeking  silver,  should,  without  meaning  it,  find 
gold,  which  an  occult  cause  presents  to  him,  not  perhaps  without 
the  divine  command."  Here  again  apparently  is  an  allusion  to 
his  having  found  Wisdom  while  he  sought  Learning.  He  had 
thought  to  find  God  in  the  beauty  of  his  works,  he  learned  to  seek 
all  things  in  God. 

1  In  a  more  general  view,  matter,  the  domain  of  the  senses,  no 
doubt  with  a  recollection  of  Aristotle's  S\TJ. 


DANTE  223 

But  it  was  no  political  pamphlet  that  Dante  was 
writing.  Subjectum  est  Homo,  and  it  only  takes 
the  form  of  a  diary  by  Dante  Alighieri  because  of 
the  intense  realism  of  his  imagination,  a  realism  as 
striking  in  the  Paradiso  as  the  Inferno,  though 
it  takes  a  different  shape.  Everything,  the  most 
supersensual,  presented  itself  to  his  mind,  not  as 
abstract  idea,  but  as  visible  type.  As  men  could 
once  embody  a  quality  of  good  in  a  saint  and  see 
it,  as  they  even  now  in  moments  of  heightened 
fantasy  or  enthusiasm  can  personify  their  country 
and  speak  of  England,  France,  or  America,  as  if 
they  were  real  beings,  so  did  Dante  habitually.1 
He  saw  all  his  thoughts  as  distinctly  as  the  hypo 
chondriac  sees  his  black  dog,  and,  as  in  that,  their 
form  and  color  were  but  the  outward  form  of  an  in 
ward  and  spiritual  condition.  Whatever  subsidiary^ 
interpretations  the  poem  is  capable  of,  its  great 
and  primary  value  is  as  the  Autobiography  of  a 
human  soul,  of  yours  and  mine^  it  may  be,  as  well 
as  Dante's.  In  that  lie  its  profound  meaning  and 
its  permanent  force.  That  an  txile,  a  proud  man 
forced  to  be  dependent,  should  have  found  some 
consolation  in  brooding  over  the  justice  of  God, 
weighed  in  such  different  scales  from  those  of  man, 
in  contrasting  the  outward  prosperity  of  the  sinner 
with  the  awful  spiritual  ruin  within,  is  not  wonder 
ful,  nay,  we  can  conceive  of  his  sometimes  finding 
the  wrath  of  God  sweeter  sthan  his  mercy.  But  it 

1  As  we  have  seen,  even  a  sigh  becomes  He.  This  makes  one  of 
the  difficulties  of  translating  his  minor  poems.  The  modern  mind 
is  incapable  of  this  subtlety. 


224  DANTE 

is  wonderful  that  out  of  the  very  wreck  of  his  own 
life  he  should  have  built  this  three-arched  bridge, 
still  firm  against  the  wash  and  wear  of  ages, 
stretching  from  the  Pit  to  the  Empyrean,  by  which 
men  may  pass  from  a  doubt  of  God's  providence  to 
a  certainty  of  his  long-suffering  and  loving-kind 
ness. 

"  The  Infinite  Goodness  hath  such  ample  arms 
That  it  receives  whatever  turns  to  it."  1 

A  tear  is  enough  to  secure  the  saving  clasp  of 
them.2  It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  Dante's 
Other  World  is  not  in  its  first  conception  a  place 
of  departed  spirits.  It  is  the  Spiritual  World, 
whereof  we  become  denizens  by  birth  and  citizens 
by  adoption.  It  is  true  that  for  artistic  purposes 
he  makes  it  conform  so  far  as  possible  with  vulgar 
preconceptions,  but  he  himself  has  told  us  again 
and  again  what  his  real  meaning  was.  Virgil  tells 
Dante,  — 

"  Thou  shalt  behold  the  people  dolorous 
Who  have  foregone  the  good  of  intellect."  8 

The  "  good  of  the  intellect,"  Dante  tells  us  after 
Aristotle,  is  Truth.4  He  says  that  Virgil  has  led 
him  " through  the  deep  night  of  the  truly  dead"  6 
Who  are  they  ?  Dante  had  in  mind  the  saying  of 
the  Apostle,  "to  be  carnally  minded  is  death." 
He  says  :  "  In  man  to  live  is  to  use  reason.  Then 
if  living  is  the  being  of  man,  to  depart  from  that 
use  is  to  depart  from  being,  and  so  to  be  dead. 

1  Purgatario,  III.  122,  123. 

2  Purgatario,  V.  107. 

8  Inferno,  III.  17,  18  (hanno  perduto  =  thrown  away). 

*  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  14. 

6  Purgatorio,  XXTTT.  121,  122. 


DANTE  225 

And  doth  not  he  depart  from  the  use  of  reason 
who  doth  not  reason  out  the  object  of  his  life  ? '' 
"  I  say  that  so  vile  a  person  is  dead,  seeming  to  be 
alive.  For  we  must  know  that  the  wicked  man  may 
be  called  truly  dead."  "  He  is  dead  who  follows 
not  the  teacher.  And  of  such  a  one  some  might  say, 
how  is  he  dead  and  yet  goes  about  ?  I  answer  that 
the  man  is  dead  and  the  beast  remains."  1  Ac 
cordingly  he  has  put  living  persons  in  the  Inferno, 
like  Frate  Alberigo  and  Branca  d'  Oria,  of  whom 
he  says  with  bitter  sarcasm  that  he  still  "  eats  and 
drinks  and  puts  on  clothes,"  as  if  that  were  his 
highest  ideal  of  the  true  ends  of  life.2  There  is  a 
passage  in  the  first  canto  of  the  Inferno  3  which 
has  been  variously  interpreted  :  — 

"  The  ancient  spirits  disconsolate 
Who  cry  out  each  one  for  the  second  death" 

Miss  Eossetti  cites  it  as  an  example  of  what  she 
felicitously  calls  "  an  ambiguity,  not  hazy,  but  pris 
matic,  and  therefore  not  really  perplexing."  She 
gives  us  accordingly  our  choice  of  two  interpreta 
tions  :  "  '  Each  cries  out  on  account  of  the  second 
death  which  he  is  suffering,'  and  '  Each  cries  out 
for  death  to  come  a  second  time  and  ease  him  of 
his  sufferings.'  "  4  Buti  says  :  "  Here  one  doubts 
what  the  author  meant  by  the  second  death,  and  as 
for  me  I  think  he  meant  the  last  damnation,  which 

1  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  7. 

2  Inferno,  XXXIII.  118,  et  seq. 
8  Inferno,  I.  116,  117. 

*  Mr.  Longfellow's  for,  like  the  Italian  per,  gives  us  the  same 
privilege  of  election.  We  "  freeze  for  cold,"  we  "hunger  for 
food." 


226  DANTE 

shall  be  at  the  day  of  judgment,  because  they 
would  wish  through  envy  that  it  had  already  come, 
that  they  might  have  more  companions,  since  the 
first  death  is  the  first  damnation,  when  the  soul 
parted  from  the  body  is  condemned  to  the  pains  of 
hell  for  its  sins.  The  second  is  when,  resuscitated 
at  the  judgment  day,  they  shall  be  finally  con 
demned,  soul  and  body  together.  ...  It  may 
otherwise  be  understood  as  annihilation."  Imola 
says,  "  Each  would  wi^h  to  die  again,  if  he  could, 
to  put  an  end  to  his  pain.  Do  not  hold  with  some 
who  think  that  Dante  calls  the  second  death  the 
day  of  judgment,"  and  then  quotes  a  passage  from 
St.  Augustine  which  favors  that  view.  Pietro  di 
Dante  gives  us  four  interpretations  among  which 
to  choose,  the  first  being  that,  "  allegorically,  de 
praved  and  vicious  men  are  in  a  certain  sense  dead 
in  reputation,  and  this  is  the  first  death  ;  the  sec 
ond  is  that  of  the  body."  This  we  believe  to  be 
the  true  meaning.  Dante  himself,  in  a  letter  to 
the  "  most  rascally  (scelestissimis)  dwellers  in 
Florence,"  gives  us  the  key  :  "  but  you,  transgres 
sors  of  the  laws  of  God  and  man,  whom  the  dire 
ful  maw  of  cupidity  hath  enticed  not  unwilling  to 
every  crime,  does  not  the  terror  of  the  second  death 
torment  you  ?  "  Their  first  death  was  in  their  sins, 
the  second  is  what  they  may  expect  from  the  just 
vengeance  of  the  Emperor  Henry  VII.  The  world 
Dante  leads  us  through  is  that  of  his  own  thought, 
and  it  need  not  surprise  us  therefore  if  we  meet  in 
it  purely  imaginary  beings  like  Tristrem  l  and  Ke- 
1  Inferno,  V.  67. 


DANTE  227 

noard  of  the  club.1  His  personality  is  so  strongly 
marked  that  it  is  nothing  more  than  natural  that 
his  poem  should  be  interpreted  as  if  only  he  and 
his  opinions,  prejudices,  or  passions  were  concerned. 
He  would  not  have  been  the  great  poet  he  was  if 
he  had  not  felt  intensely  and  humanly,  but  he 
could  never  have  won  the  cosmopolitan  place  he 
holds  had  he  not  known  how  to  generalize  his  spe 
cial  experience  into  something  mediatorial  for  all  of 
us.  Pietro  di  Dante  in  his  comment  on  the  thirty- 
first  canto  of  the  Purgatorio  says  that  "  unless  you 
understand  him  and  his  figures  allegorically,  you 
will  be  deceived  by  the  bark,"  and  adds  that  our 
author  made  his  pilgrimage  as  the  representative 
of  the  rest  (in  persona  ceterorurn)?  To  give  his 
vision  reality,  he  has  adapted  it  to  the  vulgar  my 
thology,  but  to  understand  it  as  the  author  meant, 
it  must  be  taken  in  the  larger  sense.  To  confine 

1  Paradiso,  XVIII.  46.     Renoard  is  one  of  the  heroes  (a  rudely 
humorous  one)  in  La  Bataille  d'Alischans,  an   episode   of  the 
measureless  Guillaume  d' Orange.     It  was  from  the  graves  of  those 
supposed  to  have  been  killed  in  this  battle  that  Dante  draws  a 
comparison,  Inferno,  IX.     Boccaccio's  comment  on  this  passage 
might  have  been  read  to  advantage  by  the  French  editors  of  Ali- 
schans. 

2  We  cite  this  comment  under  its  received  name,  though  it  is 
uncertain  if  Pietro  was  the  author  of  it.     Indeed,  we  strongly 
doubt  it.     It  is  at  least  one  of  the  earliest,  for  it  appears,  by  the 
comment  on  Paradiso,  XXVI.,  that  the  greater  part  of  it  was 
written   before  1341.     It   is   remarkable  for   the  strictness  with 
which  it  holds  to  the  spiritual  interpretation  of  the  poem,  and  de 
serves  much  more  to  be  called  Ottimo,  than  the  comment  which 
goes  by  that  name.     Its  publication  is  due  to  the  zeal  and  liberal 
ity  of  the  late  Lord  Vernon,  to  whom  students  of  Dante  are  also 
indebted  for  the  parallel-text  reprint  of  the  four  earliest  editions 
of  the  Commedia. 


228  DANTE 

it  to  Florence  or  to  Italy  is  to  banish  it  from  the 
sympathies  of  mankind.  It  was  not  from  the  cam 
panile  of  the  Badia  that  Dante  got  his  views  of  life 
and  man. 

The  relation  of  Dante  to  literature  is  monumen 
tal,  and  marks  the  era  at  which  the  modern  begins. 
He  is  not  only  the  first  great  poet,  but  the  first 
great  prose  writer  who  used  a  language  not  yet  sub 
dued  to  literature,  who  used  it  moreover  for  scien 
tific  and  metaphysical  discussion,  thus  giving  an 
incalculable  impulse  to  the  culture  of  his  country 
men  by  making  the  laity  free  of  what  had  hitherto 
been  the  exclusive  guild  of  clerks.1  Whatever 
poetry  had  preceded  him,  whether  in  the  Romance 
or  Teutonic  tongues,  is  interesting  mainly  for  its 
simplicity  without  forethought,  or,  as  in  the  Nibe- 
lungen,  for  a  kind  of  savage  grandeur  that  rouses 
the  sympathy  of  whatever  of  the  natural  man  is 
dormant  in  us.  But  it  shows  no  trace  of  the  crea 
tive  faculty  either  in  unity  of  purpose  or  style,  the 
proper  characteristics  of  literature.  If  it  have  the 
charm  of  wanting  artifice,  it  has  not  the  higher 
charm  of  art.  We  are  in  the  realm  of  chaos  and 
chance,  nebular,  with  phosphorescent  gleams  here 
and  there,  star-stuff,  but  uncondensed  in  stars. 

1  See  Wegele,  ubi  supra,  p.  174,  et  seq.  The  best  analysis  of 
Dante's  opinions  we  have  ever  met  with  is  Eniil  Ruth's  Studien 
iiber  Dante  Alighieri,  Tubingen,  1853.  Unhappily  it  wants  an 
index,  and  accordingly  loses  a  great  part  of  its  usefulness  for  those 
not  already  familiar  with  the  subject.  Nor  are  its  references  suf 
ficiently  exact.  We  always  respect  Dr.  Ruth's  opinions,  if  we  do 
not  wholly  accept  them,  for  they  are  all  the  results  of  original  and 
assiduous  study. 


DANTE  229 

The  Nibelungen  is  not  without  far-reaching  hints 
and  forebodings  of  something  finer  than  we  find  in 
it,  but  they  are  a  glamour  from  the  vague  darkness 
which  encircles  it,  like  the  whisper  of  the  sea  upon 
an  unknown  shore  at  night,  powerful  only  over  the 
more  vulgar  side  of  the  imagination,  and  leaving 
no  thought,  scarce  even  any  image  (at  least  of 
beauty)  behind  them.  Such  poems  are  the  amours, 
not  the  lasting  friendships  and  possessions  of  the 
mind.  They  thrill  and  cannot  satisfy. 

But  Dante  is  not  merely  the  founder  of  modern 
literature.  He  would  have  been  that  if  he  had 
never  written  anything  more  than  his  Canzoni, 
which  for  elegance,  variety  of  rhythm,  and  fervor 
of  sentiment  were  something  altogether  new.  They 
are  of  a  higher  mood  than  any  other  poems  of  the 
same  style  in  their  own  language,  or  indeed  in  any 
other.  In  beauty  of  phrase  and  subtlety  of  analogy 
they  remind  one  of  some  of  the  Greek  tragic  cho 
ruses.  We  are  constantly  moved  in  them  by  a 
nobleness  of  tone,  whose  absence  in  many  admired 
lyrics  of  the  kind  is  poorly  supplied  by  conceits. 
So  perfect  is  Dante's  mastery  of  his  material,  that 
in  compositions,  as  he  himself  has  shown,  so  arti 
ficial,1  the  form  seems  rather  organic  than  mechan- 

1  See  the  second  book  of  the  De  Vulgari  Eloquio.  The  only 
other  Italian  poet  who  reminds  us  of  Dante  in  sustained  dignity 
is  Guido  Guinicelli.  Dante  esteemed  him  highly,  calls  him  max- 
imus  in  the  De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  and  "  the  father  of  me  and  of  my 
betters,"  in  the  XXVI.  Purgatorio.  See  some  excellent  specimens 
of  him  in  Mr.  D.  G.  Rossetti's  remarkable  volume  of  translations 
from  the  early  Italian  poets.  Mr.  Rossetti  would  do  a  real  and 
lasting  service  to  literature  by  employing  his  singular  gift  in  put 
ting  Dante's  minor  poems  into  English. 


230  DANTE 

ical,  which  cannot  be  said  of  the  best  of  the  Pro- 
venc.  al  poets  who  led  the  way  in  this  kind.  Dante's 
sonnets  also  have  a  grace  and  tenderness  which 
have  been  seldom  matched.  His  lyrical  excellence 
would  have  got  him  into  the  Collections,  and  he 
woidd  have  made  here  and  there  an  enthusiast  as 
Donne  does  in  English,  but  his  great  claim  to  re 
membrance  is  not  merely  Italian.  It  is  that  he 
was  the  first  Christian  poet,  in  any  proper  sense  of 
the  word,  the  first  who  so  subdued  dogma  to  the 
uses  of  plastic  imagination  as  to  make  something 
that  is  still  poetry  of  the  highest  order  after  it  has 
suffered  the  disenchantment  inevitable  in  the  most 
perfect  translation.  Verses  of  the  kind  usually 
called  sacred  (reminding  one  of  the  adjective's 
double  meaning)  had  been  written  before  his  time 
in  the  vulgar  tongue,  such  verses  as  remain  invio 
lably  sacred  in  the  volumes  of  specimens,  looked 
at  with  distant  reverence  by  the  pious,  and  with 
far  other  feelings  by  the  profane  reader.  There 
were  cycles  of  poems  in  which  the  physical  conflict 
between  Christianity  and  Paganism l  furnished  the 
subject,  but  in  which  the  theological  views  of  the 
authors,  whether  doctrinal  or  historical,  could  hardly 
be  reconciled  with  any  system  of  religion  ancient 
or  modern.  There  were  Church  legends  of  saints 
and  martyrs  versified,  fit  certainly  to  make  any 
other  form  of  martyrdom  seem  amiable  to  those 
who  heard  them,  and  to  suggest  palliative  thoughts 
about  Diocletian.  Finally,  there  were  the  romances 

1  The  old  French  poems  confound  all  unbelievers  together  as 
pagans  and  worshippers  of  idols. 


DANTE  231 

of  Arthur  and  his  knights,  which  later,  by  means 
of  allegory,  contrived  to  be  both  entertaining  and 
edifying ;  every  one  who  listened  to  them  paying 
the  minstrel  his  money,  and  having  his  choice 
whether  he  would  take  them  as  song  or  sermon. 
In  the  heroes  of  some  of  these  certain  Christian 
virtues  were  typified,  and  around  a  few  of  them,  as 
the  Holy  Grail,  a  perfume  yet  lingers  of  cloistered 
piety  and  withdrawal.  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach, 
indeed,  has  divided  his  Parzival  into  three  books, 
of  Simplicity,  Doubt,  and  Healing,  which  has  led 
Gervinus  to  trace  a  not  altogether  fanciful  analogy 
between  that  poem  and  the  Dimna  Commedia. 
The  doughty  old  poet,  who  says  of  himself,  — 

"  Of  song  I  have  some  slight  control, 
But  deem  her  of  a  feeble  soul 
That  doth  not  love  my  naked  sword 
Above  my  sweetest  lyric  word," 

tells  us  that  his  subject  is  the  choice  between  good 
and  evil ; 

"  Whose  soul  takes  Untruth  for  its  bride 
And  sets  himself  on  Evil's  side, 
Chooses  the  Black,  and  sure  it  is 
His  path  leads  down  to  the  abyss ; 
But  he  who  doth  his  nature  feed 
With  steadfastness  and  loyal  deed 
Lies  open  to  the  heavenly  light 
And  takes  his  portion  with  the  White." 

But  Wolfram's  poem  has  no  system,  and  shows 
good  feeling  rather  than  settled  conviction.  Above 
all  it  is  wandering  (as  he  himself  confesses),  and 
altogether  wants  any  controlling  purpose.  But  to 
whatever  extent  Christianity  had  insinuated  itself 


232  DANTE 

into  and  colored  European  literature,  it  was  mainly 
as  mythology.  The  Christian  idea  had  never  yet 
incorporated  itself.  It  was  to  make  its  avatar  in 
Dante.  To  understand  fully  what  he  accomplished 
we  must  form  some  conception  c  f  what  is  meant  by 
the  Christian  idea.  To  bring  it  into  fuller  relief, 
let  us  contrast  it  with  the  Greek  idea  as  it  appears 
in  poetry  ;  for  we  are  not  dealing  with  a  question 
of  theology  so  much  as  with  one  of  aesthetics. 

Greek  art  at  its  highest  point  is  doubtless  the 
most  perfect  that  we  know.  But  its  circle  of  mo 
tives  was  essentially  limited  ;  and  the  Greek  drama 
in  its  passion,  its  pathos,  and  its  humor  is  prima 
rily  Greek,  and  secondarily  human.  Its  tragedy 
chooses  its  actors  from  certain  heroic  families,  and 
finds  its  springs  of  pity  and  terror  in  physical  suf 
fering  and  worldly  misfortune.  Its  best  examples, 
like  the  Antigone,  illustrate  a  single  duty,  or,  like 
the  Hippolytus,  a  single  passion,  on  which,  as  on 
a  pivot,  the  chief  character,  statuesquely  simple  in 
its  details,  revolves  as  pieces  of  sculpture  are  some 
times  made  to  do,  displaying  its  different  sides  in 
one  invariable  light.  The  general  impression  left 
on  the  mind  (and  this  is  apt  to  be  a  truer  one  than 
any  drawn  from  single  examples)  is  that  the  duty 
is  one  which  is  owed  to  custom,  that  the  passion 
leads  to  a  breach  of  some  convention  settled  by 
common  consent,1  and  accordingly  it  is  an  outraged 

1  Dante  is  an  ancient  in  this  respect  as  in  many  others,  but  the 
difference  is  that  with  him  society  is  something  divinely  ordaiiied. 
He  follows  Aristotle  pretty  closely,  but  on  his  own  theory  crime 
and  sin  are  identical 


DANTE  233 

society  whose  figure  looms  in  the  background, 
rather  than  an  offended  God.  At  most  it  was  one 
god  of  many,  and  meanwhile  another  might  be 
friendly.  In  the  Greek  epic,  the  gods  are  parti 
sans,  they  hold  caucuses,  they  lobby  and  log-roll 
for  their  candidates.  The  tacit  admission  of  a  re 
vealed  code  of  morals  wrought  a  great  change. 
The  complexity  and  range  of  passion  is  vastly  in 
creased  when  the  offence  is  at  once  both  crime  and 
sin,  a  wrong  done  against  order  and  against  con 
science  at  the  same  time.  The  relation  of  the 
Greek  tragedy  to  the  higher  powers  is  chiefly  an 
tagonistic,  struggle  against  an  implacable  destiny, 
sublime  struggle,  and  of  heroes,  but  sure  of  defeat 
at  last.  And  that  defeat  is  final.  Grand  figures 
are  those  it  exhibits  to  us,  in  some  respects  un 
equalled,  and  in  their  severe  simplicity  they  com 
pare  with  modern  poetry  as  sculpture  with  paint 
ing^  Considered  merely  as  works  of  art,  these 
products  of  the  Greek  imagination  satisfy  our 
highest  conception  of  form.  They  suggest  inevi 
tably  a  feeling  of  perfect  completeness,  isolation, 
and  independence,  of  something  rounded  and  fin 
ished  in  itself.  The  secret  of  those  old  shapers 
died  with  them  ;  their  wand  is  broken,  their  book 
sunk  deeper  than  ever  plummet  sounded.  The 
type  of  their  work  is  the  Greek  temple,  which 
leaves  nothing  to  hope  for  in  unity  and  perfection 
of  design,  in  harmony  and  subordination  of  parts, 
and  in  entireness  of  impression.  But  in  this  aes 
thetic  completeness  it  ends.  It  rests  solidly  and 
complacently  on  the  earth,  and  the  mind  rests  there 
with  it. 


234  DANTE 

Now  the  Christian  idea  has  to  do  with  the  hu 
man  soul,  which  Christianity  may  be  almost  said 
to  have  invented.  While  all  Paganism  represents 
a  few  preeminent  families,  the  founders  of  dynas 
ties  or  ancestors  of  races,  as  of  kin  with  the  gods, 
Christianity  makes  every  pedigree  end  in  Deity, 
makes  monarch  and  slave  the  children  of  one  God. 
Its  heroes  struggle  not  against,  but  upward  and 
onward  toward,  the  higher  powers  who  are  always 
on  their  side.  Its  highest  conception  of  beauty 
is  not  aesthetic,  but  moral.  With  it  prosperity 
and  adversity  have  exchanged  meanings.  It  finds 
enemies  in  those  worldly  good-fortunes  where  Pa 
gan  and  even  Hebrew  literature  saw  the  highest 
blessing,  and  invincible  allies  in  sorrow,  poverty, 
humbleness  of  station,  where  the  former  world 
recognized  only  implacable  foes.  While  it  utterly 
abolished  all  boundary  lines  of  race  or  country 
and  made  mankind  unitary,  its  hero  is  always  the 
individual  man  whoever  and  wherever  he  may 
be.  Above  all,  an  entirely  new  conception  of  the 
Infinite  and  of  man's  relation  to  it  came  in  with 
Christianity.  That,  and  not  the  finite,  is  always  the 
background,  consciously  or  not.  It  changed  the 
scene  of  the  last  act  of  every  drama  to  the  next 
world.  Endless  aspiration  of  all  the  faculties  be 
came  thus  the  ideal  of  Christian  life,  and  to  express 
it  more  or  less  perfectly  the  ideal  of  essentially 
Christian  art.  It  was  this  which  the  Middle  Ages 
instinctively  typified  in  the  Gothic  cathedral,  —  no 
accidental  growth,  but  the  visible  symbol  of  an  in 
ward  faith,  —  which  soars  forever  upward,  and 


DANTE  235 

yearns  toward  heaven  like  a  martyr-flame  suddenly 
turned  to  stone. 

It  is  not  without  significance  that  Goethe,  who, 
like  Dante,  also  absorbed  and  represented  the  ten 
dency  and  spirit  of  his  age,  should,  during  his  youth 
and  while  Europe  was  alive  with  the  moral  and  in 
tellectual  longing  which  preluded  the  French  Revo 
lution,  have  loved  the  Gothic  architecture.  It  is 
no  less  significant  that  in  the  period  of  reaction 
toward  more  positive  thought  which  followed,  he 
should  have  preferred  the  Greek.  His  greatest 
poem,  conceived  during  the  former  era,  is  Gothic. 
Dante,  endeavoring  to  conform  himself  to  literary 
tradition,  began  to  write  the  Divina  Commedia  in 
Latin,  and  had  elaborated  several  cantos  of  it  in 
that  dead  and  intractable  material.  But  that  poetic 
instinct,  which  is  never  the  instinct  of  an  individ 
ual,  but  of  his  age,  could  not  so  be  satisfied,  and 
leaving  the  classic  structure  he  had  begun  to  stand 
as  a  monument  of  failure,  he  completed  his  work 
in  Italian.  Instead  of  endeavoring  to  manufacture 
a  great  poem  out  of  what  was  foreign  and  artificial, 
he  let  the  poem  make  itself  out  of  him.  The  epic 
which  he  wished  to  write  in  the  universal  language 
of  scholars,  and  which  might  have  had  its  ten  lines 
in  the  history  of  literature,  would  sing  itself  in  pro 
vincial  Tuscan,  and  turns  out  to  be  written  in  the 
universal  dialect  of  mankind.  Thus  all  great  poets 
have  been  in  a  certain  sense  provincial,  —  Homer, 
Dante,  Shakespeare,  Goethe,  Burns,  Scott  in  the 
"  Heart  of  Midlothian  "  and  "  Bride  of  Lammer- 
moor,"  —  because  the  office  of  the  poet  is  always 


236  DANTE 

vicarious,  because  nothing  that  has  not  been  living 
experience  can  become  living  expression,  because 
the  collective  thought,  the  faith,  the  desire  of  a  na 
tion  or  a  race,  is  the  cumulative  result  of  many  ages, 
is  something  organic,  and  is  wiser  and  stronger 
than  any  single  person,  and  will  make  a  great  states 
man  or  a  great  poet  out  of  any  man  who  can  en 
tirely  surrender  himself  to  it. 

As  the  Gothic  cathedral,  then,  is  the  type  of  the 
Christian  idea,  so  is  it  also  of  Dante's  poem.  And 
as  that  in  its  artistic  unity  is  but  the  completed 
thought  of  a  single  architect,  which  yet  could  never 
have  been  realized  except  out  of  the  faith  and  by  the 
contributions  of  an  entire  people,  whose  beliefs  and 
superstitions,  whose  imagination  and  fancy,  find 
expression  in  its  statues  and  its  carvings,  its  calm 
saints  and  martyrs  now  at  rest  forever  in  the  seclu 
sion  of  their  canopied  niches,  and  its  wanton  gro 
tesques  thrusting  themselves  forth  from  every  pin 
nacle  and  gargoyle,  so  in  Dante's  poem,  while  it  is 
as  personal  and  peculiar  as  if  it  were  his  private 
journal  and  autobiography,  we  can  yet  read  the 
diary  and  the  autobiography  of  the  thirteenth  cen 
tury  and  of  the  Italian  people.  Complete  and  har 
monious  in  design  as  his  work  is,  it  is  yet  no  Pagan 
temple  enshrining  a  type  of  the  human  made  divine 
by  triumph  of  corporeal  beauty ;  it  is  not  a  private 
chapel  housing  a  single  saint  and  dedicate  to  one 
chosen  bloom  of  Christian  piety  or  devotion ;  it  is 
truly  a  cathedral,  over  whose  high  altar  hangs  the 
emblem  of  suffering,  of  the  Divine  made  human  to 
teach  the  beauty  of  adversity,  the  eternal  presence 


DANTE  237 

of  the  spiritual,  not  overhanging  and  threatening, 
but  informing  and  sustaining  the  material.  In  this 
cathedral  of  Dante's  there  are  side-chapels  as  is  fit, 
with  altars  to  all  Christian  virtues  and  perfections  ; 
but  the  great  impression  of  its  leading  thought  is 
that  of  aspiration,  for  ever  and  ever.  In  the  three 
divisions  of  the  poem  we  may  trace  something  more 
than  a  fancied  analogy  with  a  Christian  basilica. 
There  is  first  the  ethnic  forecourt,  then  the  purga 
torial  middle  space,  and  last  the  holy  of  holies 
dedicated  to  the  eternal  presence  of  the  media 
torial  God. 

But  what  gives  Dante's  poem  a  peculiar  claim  to 
the  title  of  the  first  Christian  poem  is  not  merely  its 
doctrinal  truth  or  its  Christian  mythology,  but  the 
fact  that  the  scene  of  it  is  laid,  not  in  this  world, 
but  in  the  soul  of  man ;  that  it  is  the  allegory 
of  a  human  life,  and  therefore  universal  in  its  sig 
nificance  and  its  application.  The  genius  of  Dante 
has  given  to  it  such  a  self-subsistent  reality,  that 
one  almost  gets  to  feel  as  if  the  chief  value  of  con 
temporary  Italian  history  had  been  to  furnish  it 
with  explanatory  foot-notes,  and  the  age  in  which  it 
was  written  assumes  towards  it  the  place  of  a  satel 
lite.  For  Italy,  Dante  is  the  thirteenth  century. 

Most  men  make  the  voyage  of  life  as  if  they  car 
ried  sealed  orders  which  they  were  not  to  open  till 
they  were  fairly  in  mid-ocean.  But  Dante  had 
made  up  his  mind  as  to  the  true  purpose  and  mean 
ing  of  our  existence  in  this  world  shortly  after  he 
had  passed  his  twenty-fifth  year.  He  had  already 
conceived  the  system  about  which  as  a  connecting 


238  DANTE 

thread  the  whole  experience  of  his  life,  the  whole 
result  of  his  studies,  was  to  cluster  in  imperishable 
crystals.  The  corner-stone  of  his  system  was  the 
Freedom  of  the  Will  (in  other  words,  the  right  of 
private  judgment  with  the  condition  of  accounta 
bility),  which  Beatrice  calls  the  "  noble  virtue."  1 
As  to  every  man  is  offered  his  choice  between  good 
and  evil,  and  as,  even  upon  the  root  of  a  nature 
originally  evil  a  habit  of  virtue  may  be  engrafted,2 
no  man  is  excused.  "  All  hope  abandon  ye  who 
enter  in,"  for  they  have  thrown  away  reason  which 
is  the  good  of  the  intellect,  "  and  it  seems  to  me  no 
less  a  marvel  to  bring  back  to  reason  him  in  whom 
it  is  wholly  spent  than  to  bring  back  to  life  him 
who  has  been  four  days  in  the  tomb."  3  As  a  guide 
of  the  will  in  civil  affairs  the  Emperor ;  in  spirit 
ual,  the  Pope.4  Dante  is  not  one  of  those  reform 
ers  who  would  assume  the  office  of  God  to  "  make  all 
things  new."  He  knew  the  power  of  tradition  and 

1  Purgatorio,  XVIII.  73.     He  defines  it  in  the  De  Monarchia 
(lib.  i.  §  14).     Among  other  things  he  calls   it  "  the  first  begin 
ning  of  our  liberty."     Paradiso,  V.  19,  20,  he  calls  it  "  the  great 
est  gift  that  in  his  largess  God  creating  made."      "  Dico  quod  judi- 
cium  medium  est  apprehensionis  et  appetitus."    (De  Monarchia,  ubi 
supra.) 

"  Right  and  wrong, 
Between  whose  endless  jar  justice  resides." 

(Troilus  and  Cressida.) 

2  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  22. 

8  Convilo,  Tr.  IV.  c.  7.  "  Qui  descenderit  ad  inferos,  non  ascen- 
det."  (Job  vii.  9.) 

4  But  it  may  be  inferred  that  he  put  the  interests  of  mankind 
above  both.  "  For  citizens,"  he  says,  "  exist  not  for  the  sake  of 
consuls,  nor  the  people  for  the  sake  of  the  king,  but,  on  the  con 
trary,  consuls  for  the  sake  of  citizens,  and  the  king  for  the  sake  of 
the  people." 


DANTE  239 

habit,  and  wished  to  utilize  it  for  his  purpose.  He 
found  the  Empire  and  the  Papacy  already  existing, 
but  both  needing  reformation  that  they  might  serve 
the  ends  of  their  original  institution.  Bad  leader 
ship  was  to  blame ;  men  fit  to  gird  on  the  sword  had 
been  turned  into  priests,  and  good  preachers  spoiled 
to  make  bad  kings.1  The  spiritual  had  usurped  to 
itself  the  prerogatives  of  the  temporal  power. 

"  Rome,  that  reformed  the  world,  accustomed  was 

Two  suns  to  have  which  one  road  and  the  other, 
Of  God  and  of  the  world,  made  manifest. 
One  has  the  other  quenched,  and  to  the  crosier 
The  sword  is  joined,  and  ill  beseemeth  it, 

Because,  being  joined  one  feareth  not  the  other."  2 
Both  powers  held  their  authority  directly  from  God, 
"  not  so,  however,  that  the  Roman  Prince  is  not  in 
some  things  subject  to  the  Roman  Pontiff,  since 
that  human  felicity  [to  be  attained  only  by  peace, 
justice,  and  good  government,  possible  only  under 
a  single  ruler]  is  in  some  sort  ordained  to  the  end 
of  immortal  felicity.  Let  Caesar  use  that  reverence 
toward  Peter  which  a  first-born  son  ought  to  use 
toward  a  father ;  that,  shone  upon  by  the  light  of 
paternal  grace,  he  may  more  powerfully  illumine 
the  orb  of  earth  over  which  he  is  set  by  him  alone 
who  is  the  ruler  of  all  things  spiritual  and  tempo 
ral."  3  As  to  the  fatal  gift  of  Constantine,  Dante 
demonstrates  that  an  Emperor  could  not  alienate 
what  he  held  only  in  trust ;  but  if  he  made  the 
gift,  the  Pope  should  hold  it  as  a  feudatory  of  the 

1  Paradiso,  VIII.  145,  146.  a  Purgatorio,  XVI.  106-112. 

8  De  Monarchia,  §  ult. 


240  DANTE 

Empire,  for  the  benefit,  however,  of  Christ's  poor.1 
Dante  is  always  careful  to  distinguish  between  the 
Papacy  and  the  Pope.  He  prophesies  for  Boniface 
VIII.  a  place  in  hell,2  but  acknowledges  him  as  the 
Vicar  of  Christ,  goes  so  far  even  as  to  denounce 
the  outrage  of  Guillaume  de  Nogaret  at  Anagni  as 
done  to  the  Saviour  himself.3  But  in  the  Spiritual 
World  Dante  acknowledges  no  such  supremacy, 
and,  when  he  would  have  fallen  on  his  knees  before 
Adrian  V.,  is  rebuked  by  him  in  a  quotation  from 
the  Apocalypse :  — 

"  Err  not,  fellow-servant  am  I 
With  thee  and  with  the  others  to  one  power."  * 

So  impartial  was  this  man  whose  great  work  is 
so  often  represented  as  a  kind  of  bag  in  which  he 
secreted  the  gall  of  personal  prejudice,  so  truly 
Catholic  is  he,  that  both  parties  find  their  arsenal 
in  him.  The  Romanist  proves  his  soundness  in 
doctrine,  the  anti-Romanist  claims  him  as  the  first 
Protestant ;  the  Mazzinist  and  the  Imperialist  can 
alike  quote  him  for  their  purpose.  Dante's  ardent 
conviction  would  not  let  him  see  that  both  Church 

1  De  Monarchia,  lib.  iii.  §  10.    "  Poterat  tamen  Imperator  in  pa- 
trocinium  EcclesiaB  patrimonium  et  alia  deputare  immoto  semper 
snperiori  dominio  cujus  unitas  divisionem  non  patitur.     Poterat  et 
Vicarius  Dei  recipere,  non  tanquam  possessor,  sed  tanquara  fruc- 
tuum  pro  Ecclesia  proque  Christi  pauperibus  dispensator."     He 
tells  us  that  St.  Dominic  did  not  ask  for  the  tithes  which  belong 
to  the  poor  of  God.     (Paradise,  XTI.  93,  94.)     "  Let  them  return 
whence  they  came,"  he  says  (De  Monarchia,  lib.  ii.  §  12) ;  "they 
came  well,  let  them  return  ill,  for  they  were  well  given  and  ill 
held." 

2  Inferno,  XIX.  53  ;  Paradise,  XXX.  145-148. 

»  Purgatorio,  XX.  86-92.  *  Purgatorio,  XIX.  134,  135. 


DANTE  241 

and  Empire  were  on  the  wane.  If  an  ugly  suspi 
cion  of  this  would  force  itself  upon  him,  perhaps 
he  only  clung  to  both  the  more  tenaciously ;  but 
he  was  no  blind  theorist.  He  would  reform  the 
Church  through  the  Church,  and  is  less  anxious  for 
Italian  independence  than  for  Italian  good  govern 
ment  under  an  Emperor  from  Germany  rather  than 
from  Utopia. 

The  Papacy  was  a  necessary  part  of  Dante's  sys 
tem,  as  a  supplement  to  the  Empire,  which  we 
strongly  incline  to  believe  was  always  foremost  in 
his  mind.  In  a  passage  already  quoted,  he  says 
that  "the  soil  where  Rome  sits  is  worthy  beyond 
what  men  preach  and  admit,"  that  is,  as  the  birth 
place  of  the  Empire.  Both  in  the  Convito  and  the 
De  Monarchia  he  affirms  that  the  course  of  Roman 
history  was  providentially  guided  from  the  first. 
Rome  was  founded  in  the  same  year  that  brought 
into  the  world  David,  ancestor  of  the  Redeemer 
after  the  flesh.  St.  Augustine  said  that  "God 
showed  in  the  most  opulent  and  illustrious  Empire 
of  the  Romans  how  much  the  civil  virtues  might 
avail  even  without  true  religion,  that  it  might  be 
understood  how,  this  added,  men  became  citizens 
of  another  city  whose  king  is  truth,  whose  law 
charity,  and  whose  measure  eternity."  Dante  goes 
further  than  this.  He  makes  the  Romans  as  well 
as  the  Jews  a  chosen  people,  the  one  as  founders 
of  civil  society,  the  other  as  depositaries  of  the  true 
faith.1  One  side  of  Dante's  mind  was  so  practical 

1  This  results  from  the  whole  course  of  his  argument  in  the  sec 
ond  book  of  De  Monarchia,  and  in  the  VI.  Paradise  he  calls  the 


242  DANTE 

and  positive,  and  his  pride  in  the  Romans  so  in 
tense,1  that  he  sometimes  seems  to  regard  their 
mission  as  the  higher  of  the  two.  Without  peace, 
which  only  good  government  could  give,  mankind 
could  not  arrive  at  the  highest  virtue,  whether  of 
the  active  or  contemplative  life.  "  And  since  what 
is  true  of  the  part  is  true  of  the  whole,  and  it  hap 
pens  in  the  particular  man  that  by  sitting  quietly 
he  is  perfected  in  prudence  and  wisdom,  it  is  clear 
that  the  human  race  in  the  quiet  or  tranquillity  of 
peace  is  most  freely  and  easily  disposed  for  its 
proper  work  which  is  almost  divine,  as  it  is  writ 
ten,  '  Thou  hast  made  him  a  little  lower  than  the 
angels.' 2  Whence  it  is  manifest  that  universal 
peace  is  the  best  of  those  things  which  are  ordained 
for  our  beatitude.  Hence  it  is  that  not  riches,  not 
pleasures,  not  honors,  not  length  of  life,  not  health, 
not  strength,  not  comeliness,  was  sung  to  the  shep 
herds  from  on  high,  but  peace."  3  It  was  Dante's 
experience  of  the  confusion  of  Italy,  where 


Roman  eagle  "the  bird  of  God"  and  "the  scutcheon  of  God." 
We  must  remember  that  with  Dante  God  is  always  the  "  Emperor 
of  Heaven,"  the  barons  of  whose  court  are  the  Apostles.  (Para- 
diso,  XXIV.  115  ;  Ib.,  XXV.  17.) 

1  Dante  seems  to  imply  (though  his  name  be  German)  that  he 
was  of  Roman  descent.     He  makes  the  original  inhabitants  of 
Florence  (Inferno,  XV.  77,  78)  of  Roman  seed ;  and  Cacciaguida, 
when  asked  by  him  about  his  ancestry,  makes  no  more  definite 
answer  than  that  their  dwelling  was  in  the  most  ancient  part  of 
the  city.     (Paradiso,  XVI.  40.) 

2  Man  was  created,  according  to  Dante  ( Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  6), 
to  supply  the  place  of  the  fallen  angels,  and  is  in  a  sense  superior 
to  the  angels,  inasmuch  as  he  has  reason,  which  they  do  not  need. 

8  De  Monarchia,  lib.  i.  §  5. 


DANTE  243 

"  One  doth  gnaw  the  other 
Of  those  whom  one  wall  and  one  fosse  shut  in,"  i 

that  suggested  the  thought  of  a  universal  umpire, 
for  that,  after  all,  was  to  be  the  chief  function  of 
his  Emperor.  He  was  too  wise  to  insist  on  a  uni 
formity  of  political  institutions  a  priori?  for  he 
seems  to  have  divined  that  the  surest  stay  of  order, 
as  of  practical  'wisdom,  is  habit,  which  is  a  growth, 
and  cannot  be  made  off-hand.  He  believed  with 
Aristotle  that  vigorous  minds  were  intended  by  na 
ture  to  rule,3  and  that  certain  races,  like  certain 
men,  are  born  to  leadership.4  He  calls  democra 
cies,  oligarchies,  and  petty  princedoms  (tyrannides) 
"  oblique  policies  which  drive  the  human  race  to 
slavery,  as  is  patent  in  all  of  them  to  one  who  rea 
sons."  5  He  has  nothing  but  pity  for  mankind 
when  it  has  become  a  many-headed  beast,  "  despis 
ing  the  higher  intellect  irrefragable  in  reason,  the 
lower  which  hath  the  face  of  experience."6  He 
had  no  faith  in  a  turbulent  equality  asserting  the 
divine  right  of  I'm  as  good  as  you.  He  thought 
it  fatal  to  all  discipline :  "  The  confounding  of 
persons  hath  ever  been  the  beginning  of  sickness 
in  the  state." 7  It  is  the  same  thought  which  Shake 
speare  puts  in  the  mouth  of  Ulysses :  — 

"  Degree  being  vizarded, 

The  tmworthiest  shows  as  fairly  in  the  mask. 

.         .        When  degree  is  shaked, 

1  Purgatorio,  VI.  83,  84.  2  De  Monarchia,  lib.  i.  §  16. 

8  De  Monarchia,  lib.  i.  §  5.  4  De  Monarchia,  lib.  ii.  §  7. 

5  De  Monarchia,  lib.  i.  §  14.  6  De  Monarchia,  lib.  i.  §  18. 

7  Faradiso,  XVI.  67,  68. 


244  DANTE 

Which  is  the  ladder  to  all  high  designs, 
Then  enterprise  is  sick."  1 

Yet  no  one  can  read  Dante  without  feeling  that  he 
had  a  high  sense  of  the  worth  of  freedom,  whether 
in  thought  or  government.  He  represents,  indeed, 
the  very  object  of  his  journey  through  the  triple 
realm  of  shades  as  a  search  after  liberty.2  But  it 
must  not  be  that  scramble  after  undefined  and  in 
definable  rights  which  ends  always  in  despotism, 
equally  degrading  whether  crowned  with  a  red  cap 
or  an  imperial  diadem.  His  theory  of  liberty  has 
for  its  corner-stone  the  Freedom  of  the  Will,  and 
the  will  is  free  only  when  the  judgment  wholly  con 
trols  the  appetite.3  On  such  a  base  even  a  demo 
cracy  may  rest  secure,  and  on  such  alone. 

Rome  was  always  the  central  point  of  Dante's 
speculation.  A  shadow  of  her  old  sovereignty  was 
still  left  her  in  the  primacy  of  the  Church,  to 
which  unity  of  faith  was  essential.  He  accordingly 
has  no  sympathy  with  heretics  of  whatever  kind. 
He  puts  the  ex-troubadour  Bishop  of  Marseilles, 
chief  instigator  of  the  horrors  of  Provence,  in  para 
dise.4  The  Church  is  infallible  in  spiritual  mat 
ters,  but  this  is  an  affair  of  outward  discipline 
merely,  and  means  the  Church  as  a  form  of  polity. 
Unity  was  Dante's  leading  doctrine,  and  there 
fore  he  puts  Mahomet  among  the  schismatics,  not 
because  he  divided  the  Church,  but  the  faith.5 

1  Troilus  and  Cressida,  Act  I.  s.  3.     The  whole  speech  is  very 
remarkable  both  in  thought  and  phrase. 

2  Purgatorio,  L  71.  *  De  Monarchia.  lib.  i.  §.  14. 
*  Paradise,  IX. 

6  Irtferno,  XXVIII. ;  Purgatorio,  XXXTT. 


DANTE  245 

Dante's  Church  was  of  this  world,  but  he  surely 
believed  in  another  and  spiritual  one.  It  has  been 
questioned  whether  he  was  orthodox  or  not.  There 
can  be  no  doubt  of  it  so  far  as  outward  assent  and 
conformity  are  concerned,  which  he  would  practise 
himself  and  enforce  upon  others  as  the  first  pos 
tulate  of  order,  the  prerequisite  for  all  happiness 
in  this  life.  In  regard  to  the  Visible  Church  he 
was  a  reformer,  but  no  revolutionist;  it  is  sheer 
ignorance  to  speak  of  him  as  if  there  were  anything 
new  or  exceptional  in  his  denunciation  of  the  cor 
ruptions  of  the  clergy.  They  were  the  common 
places  of  the  age,  nor  were  they  confined  to  lay 
men.1  To  the  absolute  authority  of  the  Church 
Dante  admitted  some  exceptions.  He  denies  that 
the  supreme  Pontiff  has  the  unlimited  power  of 
binding  and  loosing  claimed  for  him.  "  Otherwise 
he  might  absolve  me  impenitent,  which  God  him 
self  could  not  do."  2 

"  By  malison  of  theirs  is  not  so  lost 
Eternal  Love  that  it  cannot  return. "  8 

Nor  does  the  sacredness  of  the  office  extend  to  him 
who  chances  to  hold  it.  Philip  the  Fair  himself 
could  hardly  treat  Boniface  VIII.  worse  than  he. 
With  wonderful  audacity,  he  declares  the  Papal 
throne  vacant  by  the  mouth  of  Saint  Peter  himself.4 
Even  if  his  theory  of  a  dual  government  were  not 

1  See  the  poems  of  Walter  Mapes  (who  vraa  Archdeacon  of  Ox 
ford)  ;  the  Bible  Guiot,  and  the  Bible  au  seignor  de  Berze,  Barba 
zan  and  Me'on,  II. 

2  De  Monarchia,  lib.  iii.  §  8. 
1  Purgatorio,  III.  133,  134. 
*  Paradiso,  XXVII.  22. 


246  DANTE 

in  question,  Dante  must  have  been  very  cautious 
in  meddling  with  the  Church.  It  was  not  an  age 
that  stood  much  upon  ceremony.  He  himself  tells 
us  he  had  seen  men  burned  alive,  and  the  author 
of  the  Ottimo  Comento  says :  "  I  the  writer  saw 
followers  of  his  [Fra  Dolcino]  burned  at  Padua  to 
the  number  of  twenty-two  together." l  Clearly, 
in  such  a  time  as  this,  one  must  not  make  "  the 
veil  of  the  mysterious  verse  "  too  thin.2 

In  the  affairs  of  this  life  Dante  was,  as  we 
have  said,  supremely  practical,  and  he  makes  pru 
dence  the  chief  of  the  cardinal  virtues.3  He  has 
made  up  his  mind  to  take  things  as  they  come,  and 
to  do  at  Rome  as  the  Romans  do. 

"  Ah,  savage  company !  but  in  the  Church 
With  saints,  and  in  the  tavern  with  the  gluttons !  "  * 

In  the  world  of  thought  it  was  otherwise,  and  here 
Dante's  doctrine,  if  not  precisely  esoteric,  was  cer 
tainly  not  that  of  his  day,  and  must  be  gathered 
from  hints  rather  than  direct  statements.  The 
general  notion  of  God  was  still  (perhaps  is  largely 
even  now)  of  a  provincial,  one  might  almost  say  a 
denominational,  Deity.  The  popular  poets  always 
represent  Macon,  Apolin,  Tervagant,  and  the  rest 
as  quasi-deities  unable  to  resist  the  superior  strength 
of  the  Christian  God.  The  Paynim  answers  the 
arguments  of  his  would-be  converters  with  the 
taunt  that  he  would  never  worship  a  divinity  who 

1  Purgatorio,  XXVII.  18 ;  Ottimo,  Inferno,  XXVIII.  55. 

2  Inferno,  IX.  63  ;  Purgatorio,  VIII.  20. 
8  Purgatorio,  XXIX.  131,  132. 

*  Inferno,  XXTT.  13,  14. 


DANTE  247 

could  not  save  himself  from  being  done  ignomini- 
ously  to  death.  Dante  evidently  was  not  satisfied 
with  the  narrow  conception  which  limits  the  inter 
est  of  the  Deity  to  the  affairs  of  Jews  and  Chris 
tians.  That  saying  of  Saint  Paul,  "  Whom,  there 
fore,  ye  ignorantly  worship,  him  declare  I  unto 
you,"  had  perhaps  influenced  him,  but  his  belief 
in  the  divine  mission  of  the  Roman  people  prob 
ably  was  conclusive.  "  The  Roman  Empire  had 
the  help  of  miracles  in  perfecting  itself,"  he  says, 
and  then  enumerates  some  of  them.  The  first  is 
that  "  under  Numa  Pompilius,  the  second  king  of 
the  Romans,  when  he  was  sacrificing  according  to 
the  rite  of  the  Gentiles,  a  shield  fell  from  heaven 
into  the  city  chosen  of  God."1  In  the  Convito 
we  find  "  Virgil  speaking  in  the  person  of  God," 
and  ^Eacus  "  wisely  having  recourse  to  God,"  the 
god  being  Jupiter.2  Ephialtes  is  punished  in  hell 
for  rebellion  against  "  the  Supreme  Jove,"  3  and, 
that  there  may  be  no  misunderstanding,  Dante 
elsewhere  invokes  the 

"Jove  Supreme, 
Who  upon  earth  for  us  wast  crucified."  * 

It  is  noticeable  also  that  Dante,  with  evident  de 
sign,  constantly  alternates  examples  drawn  from 
Christian  and  Pagan  tradition  or  mythology. 5  He 

1  De  Monarchia,  lib.  ii.  §  4. 

2  Convito,  Tr.IV.c.  4;  Ib.,  c.  27;  ^Eneid,  I.  178,  179;  Ovid'a 
Met.,  VII. 

8  Inferno,  XXXI.  92. 

*  Purgatorio,  VI.  118, 119.     Pulci,  not  understanding,  has  paro 
died  this.     (Morgante,  Canto  II.  st.  1.) 

6  See,  for  example,  Purgatorio,  XX.  100-117. 


248  DANTE 

had  conceived  a  unity  in  the  human  race,  all  of 
whose  branches  had  worshipped  the  same  God  un 
der  divers  names  and  aspects,  and  had  arrived  at 
the  same  truth  by  different  roads.  We  cannot  un 
derstand  a  passage  in  the  twenty-sixth  Paradiso, 
where  Dante  inquires  of  Adam  concerning  the 
names  of  God,  except  as  a  hint  that  the  Chosen 
People  had  done  in  this  thing  even  as  the  Gentiles 
did.1  It  is  true  that  he  puts  all  Pagans  in  Limbo, 
"where  without  hope  they  live  in  longing,"  and 
that  he  makes  baptism  essential  to  salvation.2  But 
it  is  noticeable  that  his  Limbo  is  the  Elysium  of 
Virgil,  and  that  he  particularizes  Adam,  Noah, 
Moses,  Abraham,  David,  and  others  as  prisoners 
there  with  the  rest  till  the  descent  of  Christ  into 
hell.3  But  were  they  altogether  without  hope? 
and  did  baptism  mean  an  immersion  of  the  body 
or  a  purification  of  the  soul?  The  state  of  the 
heathen  after  death  had  evidently  been  to  Dante 
one  of  those  doubts  that  spring  up  at  the  foot 
of  every  truth.  In  the  De  Monarchia  he  says : 
"  There  are  some  judgments  of  God  to  which, 
though  human  reason  cannot  attain  by  its  own 

1  We  believe  that  Dante,  though  he  did  not  understand  Greek, 
knew  something  of  Hebrew.     He  would  have  been  likely  to  study 
it  as  the  sacred  language,  and  opportunities  of  profiting  by  the 
help  of  learned  Jews  could  not  have  been  wanting  to  him  in  his 
•wanderings.     In  the  above-cited  passage  some  of  the.  best  texts 
read  I  s'  appellava,  and  others  Un  s'  appellava.     God  was  called  I 
(the  Je  in  Jehovah)  or  One,  and  afterwards  El,  —  the  strong,  — 
an  epithet  given  to  many  gods.     Whichever  reading  we  adopt, 
the  meaning  and  the  inference  from  it  are  the  same. 

2  Inferno,  IV. 

8  Dante's  "  Limbo,"  of  course,  is  the  older  "  Limbus  Patrum." 


DANTE  249 

strength,  yet  is  it  lifted  to  them  by  the  help  of 
faith  and  of  those  things  which  are  said  to  us  in 
Holy  Writ,  —  as  to  this,  that  no  one,  however  per 
fect  in  the  moral  and  intellectual  virtues  both  as  a 
habit  [of  the  mind]  and  in  practice,  can  be  saved 
without  faith,  it  being  granted  that  he  shall  never 
have  heard  anything  concerning  Christ;  for  the 
unaided  reason  of  man  cannot  look  upon  this  as 
just ;  nevertheless,  with  the  help  of  faith,  it  can." 
But  faith,  it  should  seem,  was  long  in  lifting  Dante 
to  this  height ;  for  in  the  nineteenth  canto  of  the 
Paradiso,  which  must  have  been  written  many 
years  after  the  passage  just  cited,  the  doubt  recurs 
again,  and  we  are  told  that  it  was  "a  cavern," 
concerning  which  he  had  "  made  frequent  question 
ing."  The  answer  is  given  here  :  — • 

"  Truly  to  him  who  with  me  subtilizes, 

'If  so  the  Scripture  were  not  over  you, 

For  doubting  there  were  marvellous  occasion." 

But  what  Scripture  ?  Dante  seems  cautious,  tells 
us  that  the  eternal  judgments  are  above  our  com 
prehension,  postpones  the  answer,  and  when  it 
comes,  puts  an  orthodox  prophylactic  before  it :  — 

"  Unto  this  kingdom  never 
Ascended  one  who  had  not  faith  in  Christ, 
Before  or  since  he  to  the  tree  was  nailed. 
But  look  thou,  many  crying  are,  '  Christ,  Christ  !  ' 
Who  at  the  judgment  shall  be  far  less  near 
To  him  than  some  shall  be  who  knew  not  Christ." 

There  is,  then,  some  hope  for  the  man  born  on  the 
bank  of  Indus  who  has  never  heard  of  Christ? 
Dante  is  still  cautious,  but  answers  the  question  in- 

1  De  Monarchia,  lib  ii.  §  8. 


250  DANTE 

directly  in  the  next  canto  by  putting  the  Trojan 
Ripheus  among  the  blessed  :  — 

"  Who  would  believe,  down  in  the  errant  world, 
That  e'er  the  Trojan  Ripheus  in  this  round 
Could  be  the  fifth  one  of  these  holy  lights  ? 
Now  knoweth  he  enough  of  what  the  world 
Has  not  the  power  to  see  of  grace  divine, 
Although  his  sight  may  not  discern  the  bottom." 

Then  he  seems  to  hesitate  again,  brings  in  the 
Church  legend  of  Trajan  brought  back  to  life  by 
the  prayers  of  Gregory  the  Great  that  he  might  be 
converted ;  and  after  an  interval  of  fifty  lines  tells 
us  how  Ripheus  was  saved  :  — 

"  The  other  one,  through  grace,  that  from  so  deep 
A  fountain  wells  that  never  hath  the  eye 
Of  any  creature  reached  its  primal  wave, 

Set  all  his  love  below  on  righteousness ; 

Wherefore  from  grace  to  grace  did  God  unclose 
His  eye  to  our  redemption  yet  to  be, 

Whence  he  believed  therein,  and  suffered  not 

From  that  day  forth  the  stench  of  Paganism, 
And  he  reproved  therefor  the  folk  perverse. 

Those  Maidens  three,  whom  at  the  right-hand  wheel 1 
Thou  didst  behold,  were  unto  him  for  baptism 
More  than  a  thousand  years  before  baptizing." 

If  the  reader  recall  a  passage  already  quoted  from 
the  Convito,2  he  will  perhaps  think  with  us  that 
the  gate  of  Dante's  Limbo  is  left  ajar  even  for  the 
ancient  philosophers  to  slip  out.  The  divine  judg 
ments  are  still  inscrutable,  and  the  ways  of  God 

1  Faith,    Hope,  and  Charity.     (Purgatorio,  XXIX.    121.)     Mr. 
Longfellow  has  translated  the  last  verse  literally.     The  meaning 

IB, 

"  More  than  a  thousand  years  ere  baptism  was." 

2  In  which  the  celestial  Athens  is  mentioned. 


DANTE  251 

past  finding  out,  but  faith  would  seem  to  have  led 
Dante  at  last  to  a  more  merciful  solution  of  his 
doubt  than  he  had  reached  when  he  wrote  the  De 
Monarchia.  It  is  always  humanizing  to  see  how 
the  most  rigid  creed  is  made  to  bend  before  the 
kindlier  instincts  of  the  heart.  The  stern  Dante 
thinks  none  beyond  hope  save  those  who  are  dead 
in  sin,  and  have  made  evil  their  good.  But  we  are 
by  no  means  sure  that  he  is  not  right  in  insisting 
rather  on  the  implacable  severity  of  the  law  than 
on  the  possible  relenting  of  the  judge.  Exact  jus 
tice  is  commonly  more  merciful  in  the  long  run 
than  pity,  for  it  tends  to  foster  in  men  those 
stronger  qualities  which  make  them  good  citizens, 
an  object  second  only  with  the  Roman-minded 
Dante  to  that  of  making  them  spiritually  regener 
ate,  nay,  perhaps  even  more  important  as  a  neces 
sary  preliminary  to  it.  The  inscription  over  the 
gate  of  hell  tells  us  that  the  terms  on  which  we  re 
ceive  the  trust  of  life  were  fixed  by  the  Divine 
Power  (which  can  what  it  wills),  and  are  therefore 
unchangeable  ;  by  the  Highest  Wisdom,  and  there 
fore  for  our  truest  good ;  by  the  Primal  Love,  and 
therefore  the  kindest.  These  are  the  three  attri 
butes  of  that  justice  which  moved  the  maker  of 
them.  Dante  is  no  harsher  than  experience,  which 
always  exacts  the  uttermost  farthing ;  no  more  in 
exorable  than  conscience,  which  never  forgives  nor 
forgets.  No  teaching  is  truer  or  more  continually 
needful  than  that  the  stains  of  the  soul  are  in 
effaceable,  and  that  though  their  growth  may  be 
arrested,  their  nature  is  to  spread  insidiously  till 


252  DANTE 

they  have  brought  all  to  their  own  color.  Evil  is 
a  far  more  cunning  and  persevering  propagandist 
than  Good,  for  it  has  no  inward  strength,  and  is 
driven  to  seek  countenance  and  sympathy.  It  must 
have  company,  for  it  cannot  bear  to  be  alone  in 
the  dark,  while 

"  Virtue  can  see  to  do  what  Virtue  would 
By  her  own  radiant  light." 

There  is  one  other  point  which  we  will  dwell  on 
for  a  moment  as  bearing  on  the  question  of  Dante's 
orthodoxy.  His  nature  was  one  in  which,  as  in 
Swedenborg's,  a  clear  practical  understanding  was 
continually  streamed  over  by  the  northern  lights  of 
mysticism,  through  which  the  familiar  stars  shine 
with  a  softened  and  more  spiritual  lustre.  Nothing 
is  more  interesting  than  the  way  in  which  the  two 
qualities  of  his  mind  alternate,  and  indeed  play  into 
each  other,  tingeing  his  matter-of-fact  sometimes 
with  unexpected  glows  of  fancy,  sometimes  giving 
an  almost  geometrical  precision  to  his  most  mysti 
cal  visions.  In  his  letter  to  Can  Grande  he  says : 
"  It  behooves  not  those  to  whom  it  is  given  to  know 
what  is  best  in  us  to  follow  the  footprints  of  the 
herd ;  much  rather  are  they  bound  to  oppose  its 
wanderings.  For  the  vigorous  in  intellect  and  rea 
son,  endowed  with  a  certain  divine  liberty,  are  con 
strained  by  no  customs.  Nor  is  it  wonderful,  since 
they  are  not  governed  by  the  laws,  but  much  more 
govern  the  laws  themselves."  It  is  not  impossible 
that  Dante,  whose  love  of  knowledge  was  all-em 
bracing,  may  have  got  some  hint  of  the  doctrine  of 
the  Oriental  Sufis.  With  them  the  first  and  lowest 


DANTE  253 

of  the  steps  that  lead  upward  to  perfection  is  the 
Law,  a  strict  observance  of  which  is  all  that  is  ex 
pected  of  the  ordinary  man  whose  mind  is  not  open 
to  the  conception  of  a  higher  virtue  and  holiness. 
But  the  Sufi  puts  himself  under  the  guidance  of 
some  holy  man  [Virgil  in  the  Inferno],  whose 
teaching  he  receives  implicitly,  and  so  arrives  at 
the  second  step,  which  is  the  Path  \Purg atorio~\ 
by  which  he  reaches  a  point  where  he  is  freed  from 
all  outward  ceremonials  and  observances,  and  has 
risen  from  an  outward  to  a  spiritual  worship.  The 
third  step  is  Knowledge  \Paradiso~\,  endowed  by 
which  with  supernatural  insight,  he  becomes  like 
the  angels  about  the  throne,  and  has  but  one  far 
ther  step  to  take  before  he  reaches  the  goal  and 
becomes  one  with  God.  The  analogies  of  this  sys 
tem  with  Dante's  are  obvious  and  striking.  They 
become  still  more  so  when  Virgil  takes  leave  of 
him  at  the  entrance  of  the  Terrestrial  Paradise 
with  the  words  :  — 

"  Expect  no  more  a  word  or  sign  from  me  ; 

Free  and  upright  and  sound  is  thy  free-will, 
And  error  were  it  not  to  do  its  bidding ; 
Thee  o'er  thyself  I  therefore  crown  and  mitre," 1 

that  is,  "  I  make  thee  king  and  bishop  over  thy 
self  ;  the  inward  light  is  to  be  thy  law  in  things 
both  temporal  and  spiritual."  The  originality  of 
Dante  consists  in  his  not  allowing  any  divorce  be 
tween  the  intellect  and  the  soul  in  its  highest  sense, 
in  his  making  reason  and  intuition  work  together 
to  the  same  end  of  spiritual  perfection.  The  un- 
l  Purgatorio,  XXVII.  139-142. 


254  DANTE 

satisfactoriness  of  science  leads  Faust  to  seek  re 
pose  in  worldly  pleasure ;  it  led  Dante  to  find  it  in 
faith,  of  whose  efficacy  the  shortcoming  of  all  logi 
cal  substitutes  for  it  was  the  most  convincing  argu 
ment.  That  we  cannot  know,  is  to  him  a  proof 
that  there  is  some  higher  plane  on  which  we  can 
believe  and  see.  Dante  had  discovered  the  incal 
culable  worth  of  a  single  idea  as  compared  with 
the  largest  heap  of  facts  ever  gathered.  To  a  man 
more  interested  in  the  soul  of  things  than  in  the 
body  of  them,  the  little  finger  of  Plato  is  thicker 
than  the  loins  of  Aristotle. 

We  cannot  but  think  that  there  is  something 
like  a  fallacy  in  Mr.  Buckle's  theory  that  the  ad 
vance  of  mankind  is  necessarily  in  the  direction  of 
science,  and  not  in  that  of  morals.  No  doubt  the 
laws  of  morals  existed  from  the  beginning,  but  so 
also  did  those  of  science,  and  it  is  by  the  applica 
tion,  not  the  mere  recognition,  of  both  that  the 
race  is  benefited.  No  one  questions  how  much 
science  has  done  for  our  physical  comfort  and  con 
venience,  and  with  the  mass  of  men  these  perhaps 
must  of  necessity  precede  the  quickening  of  their 
moral  instincts ;  but  such  material  gains  are  illu 
sory,  unless  they  go  hand  in  hand  with  a  corre 
sponding  ethical  advance.  The  man  who  gives 
his  life  for  a  principle  has  done  more  for  his  kind 
than  he  who  discovers  a  new  metal  or  names  a  new 
gas,  for  the  great  motors  of  the  race  are  moral,  not 
intellectual,  and  their  force  lies  ready  to  the  use  of 
the  poorest  and  weakest  of  us  all.  We  accept  a 
truth  of  science  so  soon  as  it  is  demonstrated,  are 


DANTE  255 

perfectly  willing  to  take  it  on  authority,  can  appro 
priate  whatever  use  there  may  be  in  it  without  the 
least  understanding  of  its  processes,  as  men  send 
messages  by  the  electric  telegraph,  but  every  truth 
of  morals  must  be  redemonstrated  in  the  experience 
of  the  individual  man  before  he  is  capable  of  util 
izing  it  as  a  constituent  of  character  or  a  guide  in 
action.  A  man  does  not  receive  the  statements 
that  "two  and  two  make  four,"  and  that  "the  pure 
in  heart  shall  see  God,"  on  the  same  terms.  The 
one  can  be  proved  to  him  with  four  grains  of  corn  ; 
he  can  never  arrive  at  a  belief  in  the  other  till  he 
realize  it  in  the  intimate  persuasion  of  his  whole 
being.  This  is  typified  in  the  mystery  of  the  in 
carnation.  The  divine  reason  must  forever  mani 
fest  itself  anew  in  the  lives  of  men,  and  that  as 
individuals.  This  atonement  with  God,  this  iden 
tification  of  the  man  with  the  truth,1  so  that  right 
action  shall  not  result  from  the  lower  reason  of 
utility,  but  from  the  higher  of  a  will  so  purified  of 
self  as  to  sympathize  by  instinct  with  the  eternal 
laws,a  is  not  something  that  can  be  done  once  for 
all,  that  can  become  historic  and  traditional,  a  dead 
flower  pressed  between  the  leaves  of  the  family 
Bible,  but  must  be  renewed  in  every  generation, 
and  in  the  soul  of  every  man,  that  it  may  be  valid. 

1  'I  conceived  myself  to  be  now,"  says  Milton,  "not  as  mine 
own  person,  but  as  a  member  incorporate  into  that  truth  whereof 
I  was  persuaded." 

2  "  But  now  was  turning  my  desire  and  will, 

Even  as  a  wheel  that  equally  is  moved, 
The  Love  that  moves  the  sun  and  other  stars." 
(Paradise,  XXXIII.,  closing  verses  of  the  Divina  Commedia.) 


256  DANTE 

Certain  sects  show  their  recognition  of  this  in  what 
are  called  revivals,  a  gross  and  carnal  attempt  to 
apply  truth,  as  it  were,  mechanically,  and  to  accom 
plish  by  the  etherization  of  excitement  and  the 
magnetism  of  crowds  what  is  possible  only  in  the 
solitary  exaltations  of  the  soul.  This  is  the  high 
moral  of  Dante's  poem.  We  have  likened  it  to  a 
Christian  basilica ;  and  as  in  that  so  there  is  here 
also,  painted  or  carven,  every  image  of  beauty  and 
holiness  the  artist's  mind  could  conceive  for  the 
adornment  of  the  holy  place.  We  may  linger  to 
enjoy  these  if  we  will,  but  if  we  follow  the  central 
thought  that  runs  like  the  nave  from  entrance  to 
choir,  it  leads  us  to  an  image  of  the  divine  made 
human,  to  teach  us  how  the  human  might  also 
make  itself  divine.  Dante  beholds  at  last  an  image 
of  that  Power,  Love,  and  Wisdom,  one  in  essence, 
but  trine  in  manifestation,  to  answer  the  needs  of 
our  triple  nature  and  satisfy  the  senses,  the  heart, 
and  the  mind. 

"  Within  the  deep  and  luminous  subsistence 

Of  the  High  Light  appeared  to  me  three  circles, 
Of  threefold  color  and  of  one  dimension, 
And  hy  the  second  seemed  the  first  reflected 
As  Iris  is  by  Iris,  and  the  third 
Seemed  fire  that  equally  from  both  is  breathed. 

Within  itself,  of  its  own  very  color, 

Seemed  to  me  painted  with  our  effigy, 
Wherefore  my  sight  was  all  absorbed  therein.11 

He  had  reached  the  high  altar  where  the  miracle 
of  transubstantiation  is  wrought,  itself  also  a  type 
of  the  great  conversion  that  may  be  accomplished 


DANTE  257 

in  our  own  nature  (the  lower  thing  assuming  the 
qualities  of  the  higher),  not  by  any  process  of  rea 
son,  but  by  the  very  fire  of  the  divine  love. 

"  Then  there  smote  my  mind 
A  flash  of  lightning  wherein  came  its  wish." 1 

Perhaps  it  seems  little  to  say  that  Dante  was  the 
first  great  poet  who  ever  made  a  poem  wholly  out 
of  himself,  but,  rightly  looked  at,  it  implies  a  won 
derful  self-reliance  and  originality  in  his  genius. 
His  is  the  first  keel  that  ever  ventured  into  the 
silent  sea  of  human  consciousness  to  find  a  new 
world  of  poetry. 

'*  L'  acqua  ch'  io  prendo  giammai  non  si  corse-"  2 

He  discovered  that  not  only  the  story  of  some  he 
roic  person,  but  that  of  any  man  might  be  epical ; 
that  the  way  to  heaven  was  not  outside  the  world, 
but  through  it.  Living  at  a  time  when  the  end  of 
the  world  was  still  looked  for  as  imminent,3  he  be 
lieved  that  the  second  coming  of  the  Lord  was  to  take 
place  on  no  more  conspicuous  stage  than  the  soul  of 

1  Dante  seems  to  allude  directly  to  this  article  of  the  Cath 
olic  faith  when  he  says,  on  entering  the  Celestial  Paradise,  "  to 
signify  transhumanizing  by  words  could  not  be  done,"  and  ques 
tions  whether  he  was  there  in  the  renewed  spirit  only  or  in  the 
flesh  also :  — 

"  If  I  was  merely  what  of  me  thou  newly 

Createdst,  Love,  who  governest  the  heavens, 
Thou  knowest,  who  didst  lift  me  with  thy  light !  " 

(Paradiso,  I.  73-75.) 

2  Paradiso,  II.  7.     Lucretius  makes  the  same  boast :  — 

"  Avia  Pieridum  peragro  loca  nullius  ante 

Tritasolo." 
8  Convito,  Tr.  II.  c.  15. 


258  DANTE 

man ;  that  his  kingdom  would  be  established  in  the 
surrendered  will.  A  poem,  the  precious  distillation 
of  such  a  character  and  such  a  life  as  his  through 
all  those  sorrowing  but  undespondent  years,  must 
have  a  meaning  in  it  which  few  men  have  meaning 
enough  in  themselves  wholly  to  penetrate.  That  its 
allegorical  form  belongs  to  a  past  fashion,  with 
which  the  modern  mind  has  little  sympathy,  we 
should  no  more  think  of  denying  than  of  whitewash 
ing  a  fresco  of  Giotto.  But  we  may  take  it  as  we 
may  nature,  which  is  also  full  of  double  meanings, 
either  as  picture  or  as  parable,  either  for  the  sim 
ple  delight  of  its  beauty  or  as  a  shadow  of  the 
spiritual  world.  We  may  take  it  as  we  may  his 
tory,  either  for  its  picturesqueness  or  its  moral, 
either  for  the  variety  of  its  figures,  or  as  a  witness 
to  that  perpetual  presence  of  God  in  his  creation  of 
which  Dante  was  so  profoundly  sensible.  He  had 
seen  and  suffered  much,  but  it  is  only  to  the  man 
who  is  himself  of  value  that  experience  is  valuable. 
He  had  not  looked  on  man  and  nature  as  most  of 
us  do,  with  less  interest  than  into  the  columns  of 
our  daily  newspaper.  He  saw  in  them  the  latest 
authentic  news  of  the  God  who  made  them,  for  he 
carried  everywhere  that  vision  washed  clear  with 
tears  which  detects  the  meaning  under  the  mask, 
and,  beneath  the  casual  and  transitory,  the  eternal 
keeping  its  sleepless  watch.  The  secret  of  Dante's 
power  is  not  far  to  seek.  Whoever  can  express 
himself  with  the  full  force  of  unconscious  sincerity 
will  be  found  to  have  uttered  something  ideal  and 
universal.  Dante  intended  a  didactic  poem,  but 


DANTE  259 

the  most  picturesque  of  poets  could  not  escape  his 
genius,  and  his  sermon  sings  and  glows  and  charms 
in  a  manner  that  surprises  more  at  the  fiftieth 
reading  than  the  first,  such  variety  of  freshness  is 
in  imagination. 

There  are  no  doubt  in  the  Divina  Comm  edict,  (re 
garded  merely  as  poetry)  sandy  spaces  enough  both 
of  physics  and  metaphysics,  but  with  every  deduc 
tion  Dante  remains  the  first  of  descriptive  as  well 
as  moral  poets.  His  verse  is  as  various  as  the  feel 
ing  it  conveys  ;  now  it  has  the  terseness  and  edge 
of  steel,  and  now  palpitates  with  iridescent  softness 
like  the  breast  of  a  dove.  In  vividness  he  is  with 
out  a  rival.  He  drags  back  by  its  tangled  locks 
the  unwilling  head  of  some  petty  traitor  of  an  Ital 
ian  provincial  town,  lets  the  fire  glare  on  the  sullen 
face  for  a  moment,  and  it  sears  itself  into  the  mem 
ory  forever.  He  shows  us  an  angel  glowing  with  that 
love  of  God  which  makes  him  a  star  even  amid  the 
glory  of  heaven,  and  the  holy  shape  keeps  lifelong 
watch  in  our  fantasy,  constant  as  a  sentinel.  He 
has  the  skill  of  conveying  impressions  indirectly. 
In  the  gloom  of  hell  his  bodily  presence  is  revealed 
by  his  stirring  something,  on  the  mount  of  expia 
tion  by  casting  a  shadow.  Would  he  have  us  feel 
the  brightness  of  an  angel  ?  He  makes  him  whiten 
afar  through  the  smoke  like  a  dawn,1  or,  walk 
ing  straight  toward  the  setting  sun,  he  finds  his 
eyes  suddenly  unable  to  withstand  a  greater  splen 
dor  against  which  his  hand  is  unavailing  to  shield 

1  Purgatorio,  XVI.  142.      Here  is  Milton's  "  Far  off  his  coming 
shone." 


260  DANTE 

him.  Even  its  reflected  light,  then,  is  brighter 
than  the  direct  ray  of  the  sun.1  And  how  much 
more  keenly  do  we  feel  the  parched  lips  of  Master 
Adam  for  those  rivulets  of  the  Casentino  which 
run  down  into  the  Arno,  "  making  their  channels 
cool  and  soft  "  !  His  comparisons  are  as  fresh,  as 
simple,  and  as  directly  from  nature  as  those  of 
Homer.2  Sometimes  they  show  a  more  subtle 
observation,  as  where  he  compares  the  stooping  of 
Antaeus  over  him  to  the  leaning  tower  of  Cari- 
senda,  to  which  the  clouds,  flying  in  an  opposite  di 
rection  to  its  inclination,  give  away  their  motion.3 
His  suggestions  of  individuality,  too,  from  attitude 
or  speech,  as  in  Fariuata,  Sordello,  or  Pia,4  give 
in  a  hint  what  is  worth  acres  of  so-called  character- 
painting.  In  straightforward  pathos,  the  single  and 
sufficient  thrust  of  phrase,  he  has  no  competitor. 
He  is  too  sternly  touched  to  be  effusive  and  tearful : 

"  Io  non  piangeva,  si  dentro  impietrai."  6 

His  is  always  the  true  coin  of  speech, 

1  Purgatorio,  XV.  7,  et  seq. 

2  See,  for  example,  Inferno,  XVII.  127-132 ;  Ib.  XXIV.  7-12 ; 
Purgatorio,   11.124-129;   Ib.,  III.   79-84;  Ib.,  XXVII.  76-81; 
Paradiso,  XIX.  91-93 ;  Ib.  XXI.  34-39 ;  Ib.  XXIII.  1-9. 

8  Inferno,  XXXI.  136-138. 

"  And  those  thin  clonds  above,  in  flakes  and  bars, 
That  give  away  their  motion  to  the  stars." 

(Coleridge,  Dejection,  an  Ode.) 

See  also  the  comparison  of  the  dimness  of  the  faces  seen  around 
him  in  Paradise  to  "  a  pearl  on  a  white  forehead."  (Paradise, 
IH.  14.) 

*  Inferno,  X.  35-41  ;  Pnrgatorio,  VI.  61-66  ;  Ib.,  X.  133. 
5  For  example,  Cavalcanti's  Come  dicesti  egli  ebbe  ?     (Inferno,  X. 
67,  68.)     Anselmuccio's  Tu  guardi  si,  padre,  che  hoi  ?     ( Inferno, 

xxxin.  51.) 


DANTE  261 

"  SI  lucida  e  si  tonda 
Che  nel  suo  conio  mil  la  ci  s'  inforsa," 

and  never  the  highly  ornamented  promise  to  pay, 
token  of  insolvency. 

No  doubt  it  is  primarily  by  his  poetic  qualities 
that  a  poet  must  be  judged,  for  it  is  by  these,  if  by 
anything,  that  he  is  to  maintain  his  place  in  litera 
ture.  And  he  must  be  judged  by  them  absolutely, 
with  reference,  that  is,  to  the  highest  standard, 
and  not  relatively  to  the  fashions  and  opportunities 
of  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  Yet  these  considera 
tions  must  fairly  enter  into  our  decision  of  another 
side  of  the  question,  and  one  that  has  much  to  do 
with  the  true  quality  of  the  man,  with  his  charac 
ter  as  distinguished  from  his  talent,  and  therefore 
with  how  much  he  will  influence  men  as  well  as 
delight  them.  We  may  reckon  up  pretty  exactly  a 
man's  advantages  and  defects  as  an  artist ;  these  he 
has  in  common  with  others,  and  they  are  to  be  mea 
sured  by  a  recognized  standard  ;  but  there  is  some 
thing  in  his  genius  that  is  incalculable.  It  would 
be  hard  to  define  the  causes  of  the  difference  of  im 
pression  made  upon  us  respectively  by  two  such 
men  as  ^Eschylus  and  Euripides,  but  we  feel  pro 
foundly  that  the  latter,  though  in  some  respects  a 
better  dramatist,  was  an  infinitely  lighter  weight. 
2Eschylus  stirs  something  in  us  far  deeper  than  the 
sources  of  mere  pleasurable  excitement.  The  man 
behind  the  verse  is  far  greater  than  the  verse  itself, 
and  the  impulse  he  gives  to  what  is  deepest  and 
most  sacred  in  us,  though  we  cannot  always  explain 
it,  is  none  the  less  real  and  lasting.  Some  men 


262  DANTE 

always  seem  to  remain  outside  their  work ;  others 
make  their  individuality  felt  in  every  part  of  it  ; 
their  very  life  vibrates  in  every  verse,  and  we  do 
not  wonder  that  it  has  "  made  them  lean  for  many 
years."  The  virtue  that  has  gone  out  of  them 
abides  in  what  they  do.  The  book  such  a  man 
makes  is  indeed,  as  Milton  called  it,  "  the  precious 
lifeblood  of  a  master  spirit."  Theirs  is  a  true  im 
mortality,  for  it  is  their  soul,  and  not  their  talent, 
that  survives  in  their  work.  Dante's  concise  forth- 
rightness  of  phrase,  which  to  that  of  most  other 
poets  is  as  a  stab  *  to  a  blow  with  a  cudgel,  the 
vigor  of  his  thought,  the  beauty  of  his  images,  the 
refinement  of  his  conception  of  spiritual  things, 
are  marvellous  if  we  compare  him  with  his  age 
and  its  best  achievement.  But  it  is  for  his  power 
of  inspiring  and  sustaining,  it  is  because  they  find 
in  him  a  spur  to  noble  aims,  a  secure  refuge  in 
that  defeat  which  the  present  always  seems,  that 
they  prize  Dante  who  know  and  love  him  best.  He 
is  not  merely  a  great  poet,  but  an  influence,  part  of 
the  soul's  resources  in  time  of  trouble.  From  him 
she  learns  that,  "  married  to  the  truth,  she  is  a  mis 
tress,  but  otherwise  a  slave  shut  out  of  all  lib 
erty."2 

All  great  poets  have  their  message  to  deliver  us, 
from  something  higher  than  they.  We  venture  on 
no  unworthy  comparison  between  him  who  reveals 

1  To  the  "  bestiality  "  of  certain  arguments  Dante  says,  "  one 
•would  wish  to  reply,  not  •with  words,  but  •with  a  knife. "      ( Con- 
Vito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  14.) 

2  Convito,  Tr.  IV.  c.  2. 


DANTE  263 

to  us  the  beauty  of  this  world's  love  and  the  gran 
deur  of  this  world's  passion  and  him  who  shows 
that  love  of  God  is  the  fruit  whereof  all  other  loves 
are  but  the  beautiful  and  fleeting  blossom,  that  the 
passions  are  yet  sublimer  objects  of  contemplation, 
when,  subdued  by  the  will,  they  become  patience 
in  suffering  and  perseverance  in  the  upward  path. 
But  we  cannot  help  thinking  that  if  Shakespeare 
be  the  most  comprehensive  intellect,  so  Dante  is 
the  highest  spiritual  nature  that  has  expressed  it 
self  in  rhythmical  form.  Had  he  merely  made  us 
feel  how  petty  the  ambitions,  sorrows,  and  vexa 
tions  of  earth  appear  when  looked  down  on  from 
the  heights  of  our  own  character  and  the  seclusion 
of  our  own  genius,  or  from  the  region  where  we 
commune  with  God,  he  had  done  much  : 

"  I  with  my  sight  returned  through  one  and  all 

The  sevenfold  spheres,  and  I  beheld  this  globe 
Such  that  I  smiled  at  its  ignoble  semblance."  * 

But  he  has  done  far  more ;  he  has  shown  us  the 
way  by  which  that  country  far  beyond  the  stars 
may  be  reached,  may  become  the  habitual  dwelling- 
place  and  fortress  of  our  nature,  instead  of  being 
the  object  of  its  vague  aspiration  in  moments  of 
indolence.  At  the  Round  Table  of  King  Arthur 
there  was  left  always  one  seat  empty  for  him  who 
should  accomplish  the  adventure  of  the  Holy  GraiL 
It  was  called  the  perilous  seat  because  of  the  dan 
gers  he  must  encounter  who  would  win  it.  In  the 
company  of  the  epic  poets  there  was  a  place  left 
for  whoever  should  embody  the  Christian  idea  of  a 
i  Paradiso,  XXII.  132-135;  Ib.,  XXVII.  110. 


264  DANTE 

triumphant  life,  outwardly  all  defeat,  inwardly  vic 
torious,  who  should  make  us  partakers  of  that  cup 
of  sorrow  in  which  all  are  communicants  with 
Christ.  He  who  should  do  this  would  indeed 
achieve  the  perilous  seat,  for  he  must  combine 
poesy  with  doctrine  in  such  cunning  wise  that  the 
one  lose  not  its  beauty  nor  the  other  its  severity,  — 
and  Dante  has  done  it.  As  he  takes  possession  of 
it  we  seem  to  hear  the  cry  he  himself  heard  when 
Virgil  rejoined  the  company  of  great  singers, 

"  All  honor  to  the  loftiest  of  poets  I  " 


SPENSER 
1875 

CHAUCER  had  been  in  his  grave  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ere  England  had  secreted  choice 
material  enough  for  the  making  of  another  great 
poet.  The  nature  of  men  living  together  in  socie 
ties,  as  of  the  individual  man,  seems  to  have  its  pe 
riodic  ebbs  and  floods,  its  oscillations  between  the 
ideal  and  the  matter-of-fact,  so  that  the  doubtful 
boundary  line  of  shore  between  them  is  in  one  gen 
eration  a  hard  sandy  actuality  strewn  only  with 
such  remembrances  of  beauty  as  a  dead  sea-moss 
here  and  there,  and  in  the  next  is  whelmed  with 
those  lacelike  curves  of  ever-gaining,  ever-receding 
foam,  and  that  dance  of  joyous  spray  which  for  a 
moment  catches  and  holds  the  sunshine. 

From  the  two  centuries  between  1400  and  1600 
the  indefatigable  Ritson  in  his  Bibliographia  Po- 
etica  has  made  us  a  catalogue  of  some  six  hundred 
English  poets,  or,  more  properly,  verse-makers. 
Ninety-nine  in  a  hundred  of  them  are  mere  names, 
most  of  them  no  more  than  shadows  of  names,  some 
of  them  mere  initials.  Nor  can  it  be  said  of  them 
that  their  works  have  perished  because  they  were 
written  in  an  obsolete  dialect ;  for  it  is  the  poem 
that  keeps  the  language  alive,  and  not  the  language 


266  SPENSER 

that  buoys  up  the  poem.  The  revival  of  letters,  as 
it  is  called,  was  at  first  the  revival  of  ancient  let 
ters,  which,  while  it  made  men  pedants,  could  do 
very  little  towards  making  them  poets,  much  less 
towards  making  them  original  writers.  There 
was  nothing  left  of  the  freshness,  vivacity,  inven 
tion,  and  careless  faith  in  the  present  which  make 
many  of  the  productions  of  the  Norman  Trouveres 
delightful  reading  even  now.  The  whole  of  Eu 
rope  during  the  fifteenth  century  produced  no 
book  which  has  continued  readable,  or  has  become 
in  any  sense  of  the  word  a  classic.  I  do  not  mean 
that  that  century  has  left  us  no  illustrious  names, 
that  it  was  not  enriched  with  some  august  intel 
lects  who  kept  alive  the  apostolic  succession  of 
thought  and  speculation,  who  passed  along  the  still 
unextinguished  torch  of  intelligence,  the  lampada 
vitce,  to  those  who  came  after  them.  But  a  clas 
sic  is  properly  a  book  which  maintains  itself  by 
virtue  of  that  happy  coalescence  of  matter  and 
style,  that  innate  and  exquisite  sympathy  between 
the  thought  that  gives  life  and  the  form  that  con 
sents  to  every  mood  of  grace  and  dignity,  which 
can  be  simple  without  being  vulgar,  elevated  with 
out  being  distant,  and  which  is  something  neither 
ancient  nor  modern,  always  new  and  incapable  of 
growing  old.  It  is  not  his  Latin  which  makes 
Horace  cosmopolitan,  nor  can  Beranger's  French 
prevent  his  becoming  so.  No  hedge  of  language 
however  thorny,  no  dragon-coil  of  centuries,  will 
keep  men  away  from  these  true  apples  of  the  Hes- 
perides  if  once  they  have  caught  sight  or  scent  of 


SPENSER  267 

them.  If  poems  die,  it  is  because  there  was  never 
true  life  in  them,  that  is,  that  true  poetic  vitality 
which  no  depth  of  thought,  no  airiness  of  fancy,  no 
sincerity  of  feeling,  can  singly  communicate,  but 
which  leaps  throbbing  at  touch  of  that  shaping 
faculty  the  imagination.  Take  Aristotle's  ethics, 
the  scholastic  philosophy,  the  theology  of  Aquinas, 
the  Ptolemaic  system  of  astronomy,  the  small  poli 
tics  of  a  provincial  city  of  the  Middle  Ages,  mix  in 
at  will  Grecian,  Roman,  and  Christian  mythology, 
and  tell  me  what  chance  there  is  to  make  an  im 
mortal  poem  of  such  an  incongruous  mixture.  Can 
these  dry  bones  live  ?  Yes,  Dante  can  create  such 
a  soul  under  these  ribs  of  death  that  one  hundred 
and  fifty  editions  of  his  poem  shall  be  called  for  in 
these  last  sixty  years,  the  first  half  of  the  sixth  cen 
tury  since  his  death.  Accordingly  I  am  apt  to  be 
lieve  that  the  complaints  one  sometimes  hears  of 
the  neglect  of  our  older  literature  are  the  regrets 
of  archaeologists  rather  than  of  critics.  One  does 
not  need  to  advertise  the  squirrels  where  the  nut- 
trees  are,  nor  could  any  amount  of  lecturing  per 
suade  them  to  spend  their  teeth  on  a  hollow  nut. 

On  the  whole,  the  Scottish  poetry  of  the  fifteenth 
century  has  more  meat  in  it  than  the  English,  but 
this  is  to  say  very  little.  Where  it  is  meant  to  be 
serious  and  lofty  it  falls  into  the  same  vices  of  un 
reality  and  allegory  which  were  the  fashion  of  the 
day,  and  which  there  are  some  patriots  so  fearfully 
and  wonderfully  made  as  to  relish.  Stripped  of 
the  archaisms  (that  turn  every  y  to  a  meaningless 
s,  spell  which  quhillc,  shake  schaik,  bugle  bowgillt 


268  SPENSER 

powder  puldir,  and  will  not  let  us  simply  whistle 
till  we  have  puckered  our  mouths  to  quhissill')  in 
which  the  Scottish  antiquaries  love  to  keep  it  dis 
guised,  —  as  if  it  were  nearer  to  poetry  the  further 
it  got  from  all  human  recognition  and  sympathy,  — 
stripped  of  these,  there  is  little  to  distinguish  it 
from  the  contemporary  verse-mongering  south  of 
the  Tweed.  Their  compositions  are  generally  as 
stiff  and  artificial  as  a  trellis,  in  striking  contrast 
with  the  popular  ballad-poetry  of  Scotland  (some 
of  which  possibly  falls  within  this  period,  though 
most  of  it  is  later),  which  clambers,  lawlessly  if  you 
will,  but  at  least  freely  and  simply,  twining  the 
bare  stem  of  old  tradition  with  graceful  sentiment 
and  lively  natural  sympathies.  I  find  a  few  sweet 
and  flowing  verses  in  Dunbar's  "  Merle  and  Night 
ingale," —  indeed  one  whole  stanza  that  has  always 
seemed  exquisite  to  me.  It  is  this  :  — 

"  Ne'er  sweeter  noise  was  heard  by  living  man 
Than  made  this  merry,  gentle  nightingale. 
Her  sound  went  with  the  river  as  it  ran 
Out  through  the  fresh  and  flourished  lusty  vale ; 
O  merle,  quoth  she,  O  fool,  leave  off  thy  tale, 
For  in  thy  song  good  teaching  there  is  none, 
For  both  are  lost,  —  the  time  and  the  travail 
Of  every  love  but  upon  God  alone." 

But  except  this  lucky  poem,  I  find  little  else  in  the 
serious  verses  of  Dunbar  that  does  not  seem  to  me 
tedious  and  pedantic.  I  dare  say  a  few  more  lines 
might  be  found  scattered  here  and  there,  but  I 
hold  it  a  sheer  waste  of  time  to  hunt  after  these 
thin  needles  of  wit  buried  in  unwieldy  haystacks 
of  verse.  If  that  be  genius,  the  less  we  have  of  it 


SPENSER  269 

the  better.  His  "Dance  of  the  Seven  Deadly 
Sins,"  over  which  the  excellent  Lord  Hailes  went 
into  raptures,  is  wanting  in  everything  but  coarse 
ness  ;  and  if  his  invention  dance  at  all,  it  is  like  a 
galley-slave  in  chains  under  the  lash.  It  would  be 
well  for  us  if  the  sins  themselves  were  indeed  such 
wretched  bugaboos  as  he  has  painted  for  us.  What 
he  means  for  humor  is  but  the  dullest  vulgarity ; 
his  satire  would  be  Billingsgate  if  it  could,  and, 
failing,  becomes  a  mere  offence  in  the  nostrils,  for 
it  takes  a  great  deal  of  salt  to  keep  scurrility  sweet. 
Mr.  Sibbald,  in  his  "  Chronicle  of  Scottish  Poetry," 
has  admiringly  preserved  more  than  enough  of  it, 
and  seems  to  find  a  sort  of  national  savor  therein, 
such  as  delights  his  countrymen  in  a  haggis,  or  the 
German  in  his  sauer-kraut.  The  uninitiated  for 
eigner  puts  his  handkerchief  to  his  nose,  wonders, 
and  gets  out  of  the  way  as  soon  as  he  civilly  can. 
Barbour's  "  Brus,"  if  not  precisely  a  poem,  has 
passages  whose  simple  tenderness  raises  them  to 
that  level.  That  on  Freedom  is  familiar.1  But  its 
highest  merit  is  the  natural  and  unstrained  tone  of 
manly  courage  in  it,  the  easy  and  familiar  way  in 
which  Barbour  always  takes  chivalrous  conduct  as 
a  matter  of  course,  as  if  heroism  were  the  least  you 
could  ask  of  any  man.  I  modernize  a  few  verses 
to  show  what  I  mean.  When  the  King  of  England 
turns  to  fly  from  the  battle  of  Bannockburn  (and 

1  Though  always  misapplied  in  quotation,  as  if  he  had  used  the 
word  in  that  generalized  meaning  which  is  common  now,  but 
which  could  not  without  an  impossible  anachronism  have  been 
present  to  his  mind.  He  meant  merely  freedom  from  prison. 


270  SPENSER 

Barbour  with  his  usual  generosity  tells  us  he  has 
heard  that  Sir  Aymer  de  Valence  led  him  away 
by  the  bridle-rein  against  his  will),  Sir  Giles 
d'Argente 

"  Saw  the  king  thus  and  his  menie 
Shape  them  to  flee  so  speedily, 
He  came  right  to  the  king  in  hy  [hastily] 
And  said,  '  Sir,  since  that  is  so 
That  ye  thus  gate  your  gate  will  go, 
Have  ye-  good-day,  for  back  will  I : 
Yet  never  fled  I  certainly, 
And  I  choose  here  to  bide  and  die 
Than  to  live  shamefully  and  fly.' " 

The  "  Brus "  is  in  many  ways  the  best  rhymed 
chronicle  ever  written.  It  is  national  in  a  high 
and  generous  way,  but  I  confess  I  have  little  faith 
in  that  quality  in  literature  which  is  commonly 
called  nationality,  —  a  kind  of  praise  seldom  given 
where  there  is  anything  better  to  be  said.  Liter 
ature  that  loses  its  meaning,  or  the  best  part  of  it, 
when  it  gets  beyond  sight  of  the  parish  steeple,  is 
not  what  I  understand  by  literature.  To  tell  you 
when  you  cannot  fully  taste  a  book  that  it  is  be 
cause  it  is  so  thoroughly  national,  is  to  condemn 
the  book.  To  say  it  of  a  poem  is  even  worse,  for 
it  is  to  say  that  what  should  be  true  of  the  whole 
compass  of  human  nature  is  true  only  to  some 
north-and-by-east-half-east  point  of  it.  I  can  un 
derstand  the  nationality  of  Firdusi  when,  looking 
sadly  back  to  the  former  glories  of  his  country,  he 
tells  us  that  "  the  nightingale  still  sings  old  Per 
sian  "  ;  1  can  understand  the  nationality  of  Burns 
when  he  turns  his  plough  aside  to  spare  the  rough 


SPENSER  271 

burr  thistle,  and  hopes  he  may  write  a  song  or  two 
for  dear  auld  Scotia's  sake.  That  sort  of  national 
ity  belongs  to  a  country  of  which  we  are  all  citi 
zens, —  that  country  of  the  heart  which  has  no 
boundaries  laid  down  on  the  map.  All  great  poe 
try  must  smack  of  the  soil,  for  it  must  be  rooted  in 
it,  must  suck  life  and  substance  from  it,  but  it  must 
do  so  with  the  aspiring  instinct  of  the  pine  that 
climbs  forever  toward  diviner  air,  and  not  in  the 
grovelling  fashion  of  the  potato.  Any  verse  that 
makes  you  and  me  foreigners  is  not  only  not  great 
poetry,  but  no  poetry  at  all.  Dunbar's  works  were 
disinterred  and  edited  some  thirty  years  ago  by 
Mr.  Laing,  and  whoso  is  national  enough  to  like 
thistles  may  browse  there  to  his  heart's  content. 
I  am  inclined  for  other  pasture,  having  long  ago 
satisfied  myself  by  a  good  deal  of  dogged  reading 
that  every  generation  is  sure  of  its  own  share  of 
bores  without  borrowing  from  the  past. 

A  little  later  came  Gawain  Douglas,  whose  trans 
lation  of  the  ^Eneid  is  linguistically  valuable,  and 
whose  introductions  to  the  seventh  and  twelfth  books 
—  the  one  describing  winter  and  the  other  May  — 
have  been  safely  praised,  they  are  so  hard  to  read. 
There  is  certainly  some  poetic  feeling  in  them,  and 
the  welcome  to  the  sun  comes  as  near  enthusiasm  as 
is  possible  for  a  ploughman,  with  a  good  steady  yoke 
of  oxen,  who  lays  over  one  furrow  of  verse,  and 
then  turns  about  to  lay  the  next  as  cleverly  along 
side  it  as  he  can.  But  it  is  a  wrong  done  to  good 
taste  to  hold  up  this  item  kind  of  description  any 
longer  as  deserving  any  other  credit  than  that  of 


272  SPENSER 

a  good  memory.  It  is  a  mere  bill  of  parcels,  a 
post-mortem  inventory  of  nature,  where  imagina 
tion  is  not  merely  not  called  for,  but  would  be  out 
of  place.  Why,  a  recipe  in  the  cookery-book  is  as 
much  like  a  good  dinner  as  this  kind  of  stuff  is  like 
true  word-painting.  The  poet  with  a  real  eye  in 
his  head  does  not  give  us  everything,  but  only  the 
best  of  everything.  He  selects,  he  combines,  or 
else  gives  what  is  characteristic  only ;  while  the 
false  style  of  which  I  have  been  speaking  seems  to 
be  as  glad  to  get  a  pack  of  impertinences  on  its 
shoulders  as  Christian  in  the  Pilgrim's  Progress 
was  to  be  rid  of  his.  One  strong  verse  that  can 
hold  itself  upright  (as  the  French  critic  Kivarol 
said  of  Dante)  with  the  bare  help  of  the  substan 
tive  and  verb,  is  worth  acres  of  this  dead  cord- wood 
piled  stick  on  stick,  a  boundless  continuity  of  dry- 
ness.  I  would  rather  have  written  that  half-stanza 
of  Longfellow's,  in  the  "  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus," 
of  the  "  billow  that  swept  her  crew  like  icicles  from 
her  deck,"  than  all  Gawain  Douglas's  tedious  enu 
meration  of  meteorological  phenomena  put  together. 
A  real  landscape  is  never  tiresome ;  it  never  pre 
sents  itself  to  us  as  a  disjointed  succession  of  iso 
lated  particulars ;  we  take  it  in  with  one  sweep  of 
the  eye,  —  its  light,  its  shadow,  its  melting  grada 
tions  of  distance :  we  do  not  say  it  is  this,  it  is  that, 
and  the  other ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  if  a  descrip 
tion  in  poetry  is  tiresome  there  is  a  grievous  mis 
take  somewhere.  All  the  pictorial  adjectives  in 
the  dictionary  will  not  bring  it  a  hair's-breadth 
nearer  to  truth  and  nature.  The  fact  is  that  what 


SPENSER  273 

we  see  is  in  the  rnind  to  a  greater  degree  than  we 
are  commonly  aware.  As  Coleridge  says,  — 

"  O  lady,  we  receive  but  what  we  give, 
And  in  our  life  alone  doth  Nature  live ! ' ' 

I  have  made  the  unfortunate  Dunbar  the  text  for 
a  diatribe  on  the  subject  of  descriptive  poetry,  be 
cause  I  find  that  this  old  ghost  is  not  laid  yet,  but 
comes  back  like  a  vampire  to  suck  the  life  out  of  a 
true  enjoyment  of  poetry,  —  and  the  medicine  by 
which  vampires  were  cured  was  to  unbury  them, 
drive  a  stake  through  them,  and  get  them  under 
ground  again  with  all  despatch.  The  first  duty  of 
the  Muse  is  to  be  delightful,  and  it  is  an  injury 
done  to  all  of  us  when  we  are  put  in  the  wrong  by 
a  kind  of  statutory  affirmation  on  the  part  of  the 
critics  of  something  to  which  our  judgment  will  not 
consent,  and  from  which  our  taste  revolts.  A  col 
lection  of  poets  is  commonly  made  up,  nine  parts 
in  ten,  of  this  perfunctory  verse-making,  and  I 
never  look  at  one  without  regretting  that  we  have 
lost  that  excellent  Latin  phrase,  Corpus  poetarum. 
In  fancy  I  always  read  it  on  the  backs  of  the  vol 
umes,  —  a  body  of  poets,  indeed,  with  scarce  one 
soul  to  a  hundred  of  them. 

One  genuine  English  poet  illustrated  the  early 
years  of  the  sixteenth  century,  —  John  Skelton. 
lie  had  vivacity,  fancy,  humor,  and  originality. 
Gleams  of  the  truest  poetical  sensibility  alternate 
in  him  with  an  almost  brutal  coarseness.  He  was 
truly  Rabelaisian  before  Rabelais.  But  there  is  a 
freedom  and  hilarity  in  much  of  his  writing  that 
gives  it  a  singular  attraction.  A  breath  of  cheer- 


274  SPENSER 

fulness  runs  along  the  slender  stream  of  his  verse, 
under  which  it  seems  to  ripple  and  crinkle,  catch 
ing  and  casting  back  the  sunshine  like  a  stream 
blown  on  by  clear  western  winds. 

But  Skelton  was  an  exceptional  blossom  of  au 
tumn.  A  long  and  dreary  winter  follows.  Surrey, 
who  brought  back  with  him  from  Italy  the  blank- 
verse  not  long  before  introduced  by  Trissino,  is  to 
some  extent  another  exception.  He  had  the  sen 
timent  of  nature  and  unhackneyed  feeling,  but  he 
has  no  mastery  of  verse,  nor  any  elegance  of  dic 
tion.  We  have  Gascoigne,  Surrey,  Wyatt,  stiff,  pe 
dantic,  artificial,  systematic  as  a  country  cemetery, 
and,  worst  of  all,  the  whole  time  desperately  in 
love.  Every  verse  is  as  flat,  thin,  and  regular  as  a 
lath,  and  their  poems  are  nothing  more  than  bun 
dles  of  such  tied  trimly  together.  They  are  said  to 
have  refined  our  language.  Let  us  devoutly  hope 
they  did,  for  it  would  be  pleasant  to  be  grateful  to 
them  for  something.  But  I  fear  it  was  not  so,  for 
only  genius  can  do  that ;  and  Sternhold  and  Hop 
kins  are  inspired  men  in  comparison  with  them. 
For  Sternhold  was  at  least  the  author  of  two  noble 
stanzas :  — 

"  The  Lord  descended  from  above 
And  bowed  the  heavens  high, 
And  underneath  his  feet  he  cast 
The  darkness  of  the  sky  ; 

"  On  cherubs  and  on  chernbims 

Full  royally  he  rode, 
And  on  the  wings  of  all  the  winds 
Came  flying  all  abroad." 

But  Gascoigne  and  the  rest  did  nothing  more  than 


SPENSER  275 

put  the  worst  school  of  Italian  love  poetry  into  an 
awkward  English  dress.  The  Italian  proverb  says, 
"  Inglese  italianizzato,  Diavolo  incarnato,"  that  an 
Englishman  Italianized  is  the  very  devil  incarnate, 
and  one  feels  the  truth  of  it  here.  The  very  titles 
of  their  poems  set  one  yawning,  and  their  wit  is  the 
cause  of  the  dulness  that  is  in  other  men.  "  The 
lover,  deceived  by  his  love,  repenteth  him  of  the 
true  love  he  bare  her."  As  thus  :  — 

"  Where  I  sought  heaven  there  found  I  hap ; 

From  danger  unto  death, 
Much  like  the  mouse  that  treads  the  trap 

In  hope  to  find  her  food, 
And  bites  the  bread  that  stops  her  breath,  — 
So  in  like  case  I  stood." 

"The  lover,  accusing  his  love  for  her  unfaithful 
ness,  proposeth  to  live  in  liberty."  He  says :  — 

'.'  But  I  am  like  the  beaten  fowl 
That  from  the  net  escaped, 
And  thou  art  like  the  ravening  owl 
That  all  the  night  hath  waked." 

And  yet  at  the  very  time  these  men  were  writing 
there  were  simple  ballad-writers  who  could  have 
set  them  an  example  of  simplicity,  force,  and 
grandeur.  Compare  the  futile  efforts  of  these  poet 
asters  to  kindle  themselves  by  a  painted  flame, 
and  to  be  pathetic  over  the  lay  figure  of  a  mistress, 
with  the  wild  vigor  and  almost  fierce  sincerity  of 
the  "  Twa  Corbies  "  :  - 

"  As  I  was  walking  all  alone 
I  heard  twa  corbies  making  a  moan. 
The  one  unto  the  other  did  say, 
Where  shall  we  gang  dine  to-day  ? 
In  beyond  that  old  turf  dyke 


276  SPENSER 

I  wot  there  lies  a  new-slain  knight ; 

And  naebody  kens  that  he  lies  there 

I]  ut  his  hawk  and  his  honnd  and  his  lady  fair. 

His  honnd  is  to  the  hunting  gone, 

His  hawk  to  fetch  the  wild  fowl  home, 

His  lady  has  ta'en  another  mate, 

So  we  may  make  ou>  dinner  sweet. 

O'er  his  white  bones  as  they  lie  hare 

The  wind  shall  blow  forevermair." 

There  was  a  lesson  in  rhetoric  for  our  worthy 
friends,  could  they  have  understood  it.  But  they 
were  as  much  afraid  of  an  attack  of  nature  as  of 
the  plague. 

Such  was  the  poetical  inheritance  of  style  and 
diction  into  which  Spenser  was  born,  and  which  he 
did  more  than  any  one  else  to  redeem  from  the 
leaden  gripe  of  vulgar  and  pedantic  conceit.  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  born  the  year  after  him,  with  a 
keener  critical  instinct,  and  a  taste  earlier  emanci 
pated  than  his  own,  would  have  been,  had  he  lived 
longer,  perhaps  even  more  directly  influential  in 
educating  the  taste  and  refining  the  vocabulary  of 
his  contemporaries  and  immediate  successors.  The 
better  of  his  pastoral  poems  in  the  "  Arcadia  "  are, 
in  my  judgment,  more  simple,  natural,  and,  above 
all,  more  pathetic  than  those  of  Spenser,  who  some 
times  strains  the  shepherd's  pipe  with  a  blast  that 
would  better  suit  the  trumpet.  Sidney  had  the 
good  sense  to  feel  that  it  was  unsophisticated  senti 
ment  rather  than  rusticity  of  phrase  that  befitted 
such  themes.1  He  recognized  the  distinction  be 
tween  simplicity  and  vulgarity,  which  Wordsworth 

1  In  his  Defence  of  Poesy  he  condemns  the  archaisms  and  pro 
vincialisms  of  the  Shepherd's  Calendar. 


SPENSER  277 

was  so  long  in  finding  out,  and  seems  to  have 
divined  the  fact  that  there  is  but  one  kind  of  Eng 
lish  that  is  always  appropriate  and  never  obsolete, 
namely,  the  very  best.1  With  the  single  exception 
of  Thomas  Campion,  his  experiments  in  adapting 
classical  metres  to  English  verse  are  more  success 
ful  than  those  of  his  contemporaries.  Some  of  his 
elegiacs  are  not  ungrateful  to  the  ear,  and  it  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  Coleridge  borrowed  from 
his  eclogue  of  Strephon  and  Klaius  the  pleasing 
movement  of  his  own  Catullian  Hendecasyllabics. 
Spenser,  perhaps  out  of  deference  to  Sidney,  also 
tried  his  hand  at  English  hexameters,  the  introduc 
tion  of  which  was  claimed  by  his  friend  Gabriel 
Harvey,  who  thereby  conceived  that  he  had  assured 
to  himself  an  immortality  of  grateful  remembrance. 
But  the  result  was  a  series  of  jolts  and  jars,  prov 
ing  that  the  language  had  run  off  the  track.  He 
seems  to  have  been  half  conscious  of  it  himself, 
and  there  is  a  gleam  of  mischief  in  what  he  writes 
to  Harvey :  "  I  like  your  late  English  hexameter 
so  exceedingly  well  that  I  also  enure  my  pen  some 
time  in  that  kind,  which  I  find  indeed,  as  I  have 
often  heard  you  defend  in  word,  neither  so  hard 
nor  so  harsh  but  that  it  will  easily  yield  itself  to 
our  mother-tongue.  For  the  only  or  chiefest  hard 
ness,  which  seemeth,  is  in  the  accent,  which  some- 

1  "  There  is,  as  you  must  have  heard  Wordsworth  point  out,  a 
language  of  pure,  intelligible  English,  which  was  spoken  in  Chau 
cer's  time,  and  is  spoken  in  ours;  equally  understood  then  and 
now  ;  and  of  which  the  Bible  is  the  written  and  permanent  stand 
ard,  as  it  has  undoubtedly  been  the  great  means  of  preserving  it." 
(Southey's  Life  and  Correspondence,  iii.  193,  194.) 


278  SPENSER 

time  gapeth,  and,  as  it  were,  yawneth  ill-favoredly, 
coming  short  of  that  it  should,  and  sometime  ex 
ceeding  the  measure  of  the  number,  as  in  Carpen 
ter  ;  the  middle  syllable  being  used  short  in  speech, 
when  it  shall  be  read  long  in  verse,  seemeth  like  a 
lame  gosling  that  draweth  one  leg  after  her ;  and 
Heaven  being  used  short  as  one  syllable,  when  it  is 
in  verse  stretched  out  with  a  diastole,  is  like  a 
lame  dog  that  holds  up  one  leg."  l  It  is  almost  in 
conceivable  that  Spenser's  hexameters  should  have 
been  written  by  the  man  who  was  so  soon  to  teach 
his  native  language  how  to  soar  and  sing,  and  to 
give  a  fuller  sail  to  English  verse. 

One  of  the  most  striking  facts  in  our  literary 
history  is  the  preeminence  at  once  so  frankly  and 
unanimously  conceded  to  Spenser  by  his  contempo 
raries.  At  first,  it  is  true,  he  had  not  many  rivals. 
Before  the  "  Faery  Queen  "  two  long  poems  were 
printed  and  popular,  —  the  "Mirror  for  Magis 
trates  "  and  Warner's  "  Albion's  England,"  —  and 
not  long  after  it  came  the  "  Polyolbion  "  of  Dray- 
ton  and  the  "  Civil  Wars  "  of  Daniel.  This  was 
the  period  of  the  saurians  in  English  poetry,  inter 
minable  poems,  book  after  book  and  canto  after 
canto,  like  far-stretching  vertebrce,  that  at  first 

1  Nash,  who  has  far  better  claims  than  Swift  to  be  called  the 
English  Rabelais,  thus  at  once  describes  and  parodies  Harvey's 
hexameters  in  prose,  "that  drunken,  staggering  kind  of  verse, 
•which  is  all  up  hill  and  down  hill,  like  the  way  betwixt  Stamford 
and  Beechfield,  and  goes  like  a  horse  plunging  through  the  mire 
in  the  deep  of  winter,  now  soused  up  to  the  saddle,  and  straight 
aloft  on  his  tiptoes."  It  was  a  happy  thought  to  satirize  (in  this 
inverted  way)  prose  written  in  the  form  of  verse,  for  the  last 
twelve  words  make  a  hexameter. 


SPENSER  279 

sight  would  seem  to  have  rendered  earth  unfit  for 
the  habitation  of  man.  They  most  of  them  sleep 
well  now,  as  once  they  made  their  readers  sleep, 
and  their  huge  remains  lie  embedded  in  the  deep 
morasses  of  Chalmers  and  Anderson.  We  wonder 
at  the  length  of  face  and  general  atrabilious  look 
that  mark  the  portraits  of  the  men  of  that  genera 
tion,  but  it  is  no  marvel  when  even  their  relaxations 
were  such  downright  hard  work.  Fathers  when 
their  day  on  earth  was  up  must  have  folded  down 
the  leaf  and  left  the  task  to  be  finished  by  their 
sons,  —  a  dreary  inheritance.  Yet  both  Drayton 
and  Daniel  are  fine  poets,  though  both  of  them  in 
their  most  elaborate  works  made  shipwreck  of  their 
genius  on  the  shoal  of  a  bad  subject.  Neither  of 
them  could  make  poetry  coalesce  with  gazetteering 
or  chronicle-making.  It  was  like  trying  to  put  a 
declaration  of  love  into  the  forms  of  a  declaration 
in  trover.  The  "  Polyolbion  "  is  nothing  less  than 
a  versified  gazetteer  of  England  and  Wales,  —  for 
tunately  Scotland  was  not  yet  annexed,  or  the  poem 
would  have  been  even  longer,  and  already  it  is  the 
plesiosaurus  of  verse.  Mountains,  rivers,  and  even 
marshes  are  personified,  to  narrate  historical  epi 
sodes,  or  to  give  us  geographical  lectures.  There 
are  two  fine  verses  in  the  seventh  book,  where, 
speaking  of  the  cutting  down  some  noble  woods,  he 
says,  — 

"  Their  trunks  like  aged  folk  now  bare  and  naked  stand,1 
As  for  revenge  to  heaven  each  held  a  withered  hand  "  ; 

and  there  is  a  passage  about  the  sea  in  the  twen- 

1  Probably  suggested  by  a  verse  of  Spenser  cited  infra. 


280  SPENSER 

tieth  book  that  comes  near  being  fine  ;  but  the  far 
greater  part  is  mere  joiner-work.  Consider  the 
life  of  man,  that  we  flee  away  as  a  shadow,  that 
our  days  are  as  a  post,  and  then  think  whether  we 
can  afford  to  honor  such  a  draft  upon  our  time  as 
is  implied  in  these  thirty  books  all  in  alexandrines ! 
Even  the  laborious  Selden,  who  wrote  annotations 
on  it,  sometimes  more  entertaining  than  the  text, 
gave  out  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  book.  Yet 
Drayton  could  write  well,  and  had  an  agreeable 
lightsomeness  of  fancy,  as  his  "  Nymphidia  "  proves. 
His  poem  "  To  the  Cambrio-Britons  on  their  Harp  " 
is  full  of  vigor  ;  it  runs,  it  leaps,  clashing  its  verses 
like  swords  upon  bucklers,  and  moves  the  pulse  to 
a  charge. 

Daniel  was  in  all  respects  a  man  of  finer  mould. 
He  did  indeed  refine  our  tongue,  and  deserved  the 
praise  his  contemporaries  concur  in  giving  him  of 
being  "  well-languaged."  1  Writing  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago,  he  stands  in  no  need  of  a  glos 
sary,  and  I  have  noted  scarce  a  dozen  words,  and 
not  more  turns  of  phrase,  in  his  works,  that  have 
become  obsolete.  This  certainly  indicates  both  re 
markable  taste  and  equally  remarkable  judgment. 
There  is  a  conscious  dignity  in  his  thought  and 

1  Edmund  Bolton  in  his  Hypercritica  says,  "  The  works  of  Sam 
Daniel  contained  somewhat  a  flat,  but  yet  withal  a  very  pure  and 
copious  English,  and  words  as  warrantable  as  any  man's,  and  Jitter 
perhaps  for  prose  than  measure."  I  have  italicized  his  second 
thought,  which  chimes  curiously  with  the  feeling  Daniel  leaves 
in  the  mind.  (See  Haslewood's  Ancient  Crit.  Essays,  vol.  ii.) 
Wordsworth,  an  excellent  judge,  much  admired  Daniel's  poem  to 
the  Countess  of  Cumberland. 


SPENSER  281 

sentiment  such  as  we  rarely  meet.  His  best  poems 
always  remind  me  of  a  table-land,  where,  because 
all  is  so  level,  we  are  apt  to  forget  on  how  lofty  a 
plane  we  are  standing.  I  think  his  "  Musophilus  " 
the  best  poem  of  its  kind  in  the  language.  The 
reflections  are  natural,  the  expression  condensed, 
the  thought  weighty,  and  the  language  worthy  of 
it.  But  he  also  wasted  himself  on  an  historical 
poem,  in  which  the  characters  were  incapable  of 
that  remoteness  from  ordinary  associations  which 
is  essential  to  the  ideal.  Not  that  we  can  escape 
into  the  ideal  by  merely  emigrating  into  the  past 
or  the  unfamiliar.  As  in  the  German  legend  the 
little  black  Kobold  of  prose  that  haunts  us  in 
the  present  will  seat  himself  on  the  first  load  of 
furniture  when  we  undertake  our  flitting,  if  the 
magician  be  not  there  to  exorcise  him.  No  man 
can  jump  off  his  own  shadow,  nor,  for  that  matter, 
off  his  own  age,  and  it  is  very  likely  that  Daniel 
had  only  the  thinking  and  languaging  parts  of  a 
poet's  outfit,  without  the  higher  creative  gift  which 
alone  can  endow  his  conceptions  with  enduring  life 
and  with  an  interest  which  transcends  the  parish 
limits  of  his  generation.  In  the  prologue  to  his 
"  Masque  at  Court "  he  has  unconsciously  defined 
his  own  poetry  :  — 

"  Wherein  no  wild,  no  rude,  no  antic  sport, 
But  tender  passions,  motions  soft  and  grave, 
The  still  spectator  must  expect  to  have." 

And  indeed  his  verse  does  not  snatch  you  away 
from  ordinary  associations  and  hurry  you  along 
with  it  as  is  the  wont  of  the  higher  kinds  of  poetry, 


282  SPENSER 

but  leaves  you,  as  it  were,  upon  the  bank  watching 
the  peaceful  current  and  lulled  by  its  somewhat 
monotonous  murmur.  His  best-known  poem,  blun 
deringly  misprinted  in  all  the  collections,  is  that 
addressed  to  the  Countess  of  Cumberland.  It  is  an 
amplification  of  Horace's  Integer  Vitce,  and  when 
we  compare  it  with  the  original  we  miss  the  point, 
the  compactness,  and  above  all  the  urbane  tone  of 
the  original.  It  is  very  fine  English,  but  it  is  the 
English  of  diplomacy  somehow,  and  is  never  down 
right  this  or  that,  but  always  has  the  honor  to  be 
so  or  so,  with  sentiments  of  the  highest  consider 
ation.  Yet  the  praise  of  well-languaged,  since  it 
implies  that  good  writing  then  as  now  demanded 
choice  and  forethought,  is  not  without  interest  for 
those  who  would  classify  the  elements  of  a  style 
that  will  wear  and  hold  its  colors  well.  His  dic 
tion,  if  wanting  in  the  more  hardy  evidences  of 
muscle,  has  a  suppleness  and  spring  that  give  proof 
of  training  and  endurance.  His  "  Defence  of 
Rhyme,"  written  in  prose  (a  more  difficult  test  than 
verse),  has  a  passionate  eloquence  that  reminds 
one  of  Burke,  and  is  more  light-armed  and  mod 
ern  than  the  prose  of  Milton  fifty  years  later.  For 
us  Occidentals  he  has  a  kindly  prophetic  word :  — 

"  And  who  in  time  knows  whither  we  may  vent 

The  treasure  of  our  tongue  ?  to  what  strange  shores 

The  gain  of  our  best  glory  may  be  sent 

To  enrich  unknowing  nations  with  our  stores  ? 

What  worlds  in  the  yet  unformed  Occident 

May  come  refined  with  accents  that  are  ours  ?  " 

During  the  period  when  Spenser  was  getting  his 
artistic  training,  a  great  change  was  going  on  in 


SPENSER  283 

our  mother-tongue,  and  the  language  of  literature 
was  disengaging  itself  more  and  more  from  that  of 
ordinary  talk.  The  poets  of  Italy,  Spain,  and 
France  began  to  rain  influence  and  to  modify  and 
refine  not  only  style  but  vocabulary.  Men  were 
discovering  new  worlds  in  more  senses  than  one,  and 
the  visionary  finger  of  expectation  still  pointed  for 
ward.  There  was,  as  we  learn  from  contemporary 
pamphlets,  very  much  the  same  demand  for  a  na 
tional  literature  that  we  have  heard  in  America. 
This  demand  was  nobly  answered  in  the  next  gen 
eration.  But  no  man  contributed  so  much  to  the 
transformation  of  style  and  language  as  Spenser ; 
for  not  only  did  he  deliberately  endeavor  at  re 
form,  but  by  the  charm  of  his  diction,  the  novel 
harmonies  of  his  verse,  his  ideal  method  of  treat 
ment,  and  the  splendor  of  his  fancy,  he  made  the 
new  manner  popular  and  fruitful.  We  can  trace 
in  Spenser's  poems  the  gradual  growth  of  his  taste 
through  experiment  and  failure  to  that  assured 
self-confidence  which  indicates  that  he  had  at 
length  found  out  the  true  bent  of  his  genius,  — 
that  happiest  of  discoveries  (and  not  so  easy  as  it 
might  seem)  which  puts  a  man  in  undisturbed  pos 
session  of  his  own  individuality.  Before  his  tune 
the  boundary  between  poetry  and  prose  had  not 
been  clearly  defined.  His  great  merit  lies  not 
only  in  the  ideal  treatment  with  which  he  glorified 
common  things  and  gilded  them  with  a  ray  of  en 
thusiasm,  but  far  more  in  the  ideal  point  of  view 
which  he  first  revealed  to  his  countrymen.  He  at 
first  sought  for  that  remoteness,  which  is  implied  in 


284  SPENSER 

an  escape  from  the  realism  of  daily  life,  in  the  pas 
toral,  —  a  kind  of  writing  which,  oddly  enough, 
from  its  original  intention  as  a  protest  in  favor  of 
naturalness,  and  of  human  as  opposed  to  heroic 
sentiments,  had  degenerated  into  the  most  artificial 
of  abstractions.  But  he  was  soon  convinced  of  his 
error,  and  was  not  long  in  choosing  between  an  un 
reality  which  pretended  to  be  real  and  those  ever 
lasting  realities  of  the  mind  which  seem  unreal 
only  because  they  lie  beyond  the  horizon  of  the 
every-day  world,  and  become  visible  only  when  the 
mirage  cf  fantasy  lifts  them  up  and  hangs  them  in 
an  ideal  atmosphere.  As  in  the  old  fairy-tales,  the 
task  which  the  age  imposes  on  its  poet  is  to  weave 
its  straw  into  a  golden  tissue ;  and  when  every 
device  has  failed,  in  comes  the  witch  Imagination, 
and  with  a  touch  the  miracle  is  achieved,  simple  as 
miracles  always  are  after  they  are  wrought. 

Spenser,  like  Chaucer  a  Londoner,  was  born  in 
1553.1  Nothing  is  known  of  his  parents,  except 
that  the  name  of  his  mother  was  Elizabeth;  but 
he  was  of  gentle  birth,  as  he  more  than  once  in 
forms  us,  with  the  natural  satisfaction  of  a  poor 
man  of  genius  at  a  time  when  the  business  talent 
of  the  middle  class  was  opening  to  it  the  door  of 
prosperous  preferment.  In  1569  he  was  entered 

1  Mr.  Hales,  in  the  excellent  memoir  of  the  poet  prefixed  to 
the  Globe  edition  of  his  works,  puts  his  birth  a  year  earlier,  on 
the  strength  of  a  line  in  the  sixtieth  sonnet.  But  it  is  not  estab 
lished  that  this  sonnet  was  written  in  1593,  and  even  if  it  were, 
a  sonnet  is  not  upon  oath,  and  the  poet  would  prefer  the  round 
number  forty,  which  suited  the  measure  of  his  verse,  to  thirty- 
nine  or  forty-one,  which  might  have  been  truer  to  the  measure  of 
his  days. 


SPENSER  285 

as  a  sizar  at  Pembroke  Hall,  Cambridge,  and  in 
due  course  took  his  bachelor's  degree  in  1573,  and 
his  master's  in  1576.  He  is  supposed,  on  insuffi 
cient  grounds,  as  it  appears  to  me,  to  have  met 
with  some  disgust  or  disappointment  during  his 
residence  at  the  University.1  Between  1576  and 
1578  Spenser  seems  to  have  been  with  some  of  his 
kinsfolk  "  in  the  North."  It  was  during  this  in 
terval  that  he  conceived  his  fruitless  passion  for 
the  Rosalinde,  whose  jilting  him  for  another  shep 
herd,  whom  he  calls  Menalcas,  is  somewhat  per 
functorily  bemoaned  in  his  pastorals.2  Before  the 

1  This  has  been  inferred  from  a  passage  in  one  of  Gabriel  Har- 
yey's  letters  to  him.     But  it  would  seem  more  natural,  from  the 
many  allusions  in  Harvey's  pamphlets  against  Nash,  that  it  was 
his  own  wrongs  which  he  had  in  mind,  and  his  self-absorption 
would  take  it  for  granted  that  Spenser  sympathized  with  him  in 
all  his  grudges.     Harvey  is  a  remarkable  instance  of  the  refining 
influence  of 'classical  studies.     Amid  the  pedantic  farrago  of  his 
cram-sufficiency  (to  borrow  one  of  his  own  words)  we  come  sud 
denly  upon  passages  whose  gravity  of  sentiment,  stateliness  of 
movement,  and  purity  of  diction  remind  us  of  Landor.     These 
lucid  intervals  in  his  overweening  vanity  explain  and  justify  the 
friendship  of   Spenser.      Yet   the    reiteration   of   emphasis   with 
which  he  insists  on  all  the  world's  knowing  that  Nash  had  called 
him  an  ass,  probably  gave  Shakespeare  the  hint  for  one  of  the 
most  comic  touches  in  the  character  of  Dogberry. 

2  The  late  Major  C.  G.  Halpine,  in  a  very  interesting  essay, 
makes  it  extremely  probable  that  Rosalinde  is  the  anagram  of 
Rose  Daniel,  sister  of  the  poet,  and  married  to  John  Florio.     He 
leaves  little  doubt,  also,  that  the  name  of  Spenser's  wife  (hitherto 
unknown)    was  Elizabeth  Nagle.     (See  Atlantic  Mottihly,  vol.  ii. 
674,  November,  1858.)     Mr.  Halpine  informed  me  that  he  found 
the  substance  of  his  essay  among  the  papers  of  his  father,  the 
late  Rev.  N.  J.  Halpine,  of  Dublin.     The  latter  published  in  the 
series  of  the  Shakespeare  Society  a  sprightly  little  tract  entitled 
Oberon,  which,  if  not  quite  convincing,  is  well  worth  reading  for 
its  ingenuity  and  research. 


286  SPENSER 

publication  of  his  "  Shepherd's  Calendar  "  in  1579, 
he  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
and  was  domiciled  with  him  for  a  time  at  Penshurst, 
whether  as  guest  or  literary  dependant  is  uncertain. 
In  October,  1579,  he  is  in  the  household  of  the 
Earl  of  Leicester.  In  July,  1580,  he  accompanied 
Lord  Grey  de  Wilton  to  Ireland  as  Secretary,  and 
in  that  country  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life,  with 
occasional  flying  visits  to  England  to  publish  poems 
or  in  search  of  preferment.  His  residence  in  that 
country  has  been  compared  to  that  of  Ovid  in  Pon- 
tus.  And,  no  doubt,  there  were  certain  outward 
points  of  likeness.  The  Irishry  by  whom  he  was 
surrounded  were  to  the  full  as  savage,  as  hostile, 
and  as  tenacious  of  their  ancestral  habitudes  as 
the  Scythians  1  who  made  Tomi  a  prison,  and  the 
descendants  of  the  earlier  English  settlers  had  de 
generated  as  much  as  the  Mix-Hellenes  who  dis 
gusted  the  Latin  poet.  Spenser  himself  looked 
on  his  life  in  Ireland  as  a  banishment.  In  his 
"  Colin  Clout  's  come  Home  again  "  he  tells  us 
that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  who  visited  him  in  1589, 
and  heard  what  was  then  finished  of  the  "  Faery 
Queen,"  — 

"  'Gan  to  cast  great  liking  to  my  lore 
And  great  disliking  to  my  luckless  lot, 
That  banisht  had  myself,  like  wight  f orlore, 
Into  that  waste,  where  I  was  quite  forgot. 
The  which  to  leave  thenceforth  he  counselled  me, 
Unmeet  for  man  in  whom  was  aught  regardful, 
And  wend  with  him  his  Cynthia  to  see, 
Whose  grace  was  great  and  bounty  most  rewardful." 

1  In  his  prose  tract  on  Ireland,  Spenser,  perhaps  with  some 
memory  of  Ovid  in  his  mind,  derives  the  Irish  mainly  from  the 
Scythians. 


SPENSER  287 

Bat  Spenser  was  already  living  at  Kilcolman  Cas 
tle  (which,  with  3,028  acres  of  land  from  the  for 
feited  estates  of  the  Earl  of  Desmond,  was  con 
firmed  to  him  by  grant  two  years  later),  amid 
scenery  at  once  placid  and  noble,  whose  varied 
charm  he  felt  profoundly.  He  could  not  complain, 
with  Ovid,  — 

"  Non  liber  hie  ullus,  non  qui  mihi  commodet  aurem," 

for  he  was  within  reach  of  a  cultivated  society, 
which  gave  him  the  stimulus  of  hearty  admiration 
both  as  poet  and  scholar.  Above  all,  he  was  fortu 
nate  in  a  seclusion  that  prompted  study  and  deep 
ened  meditation,  while  it  enabled  him  to  converse 
with  his  genius  disengaged  from  those  worldly  in 
fluences  which  would  have  disenchanted  it  of  its 
mystic  enthusiasm,  if  they  did  not  muddle  it  inglo- 
riously  away.  Surely  this  sequestered  nest  was 
more  congenial  to  the  brooding  of  those  ethereal 
visions  of  the  "  Faery  Queen "  and  to  giving  his 
"  soul  a  loose  "  than 

"  The  smoke,  the  wealth,  and  noise  of  Rome, 

And  all  the  busy  pageantry 
That  wise  men  scorn  and  fools  adore." 

Yet  he  longed  for  London,  if  not  with  the  home 
sickness  of  Bussy-Rabutin  in  exile  from  the  Paris 
ian  sun,  yet  enough  to  make  him  joyfully  accom 
pany  Raleigh  thither  in  the  early  winter  of  1589, 
carrying  with  him  the  first  three  books  of  the  great 
poem  begun  ten  years  before.  Horace's  nonum 
prematur  in  annum  had  been  more  than  complied 
with,  and  the  success  was  answerable  to  the  well" 


288  SPENSER 

seasoned  material  and  conscientious  faithfulness  of 
the  work.  But  Spenser  did  not  stay  long  in  Lon 
don  to  enjoy  his  fame.  Seen  close  at  hand,  with 
its  jealousies,  intrigues,  and  selfish  basenesses,  the 
court  had  lost  the  enchantment  lent  by  the  distance 
of  Kilcolman.  A  nature  so  prone  to  ideal  contem 
plation  as  Spenser's  would  be  profoundly  shocked 
by  seeing  too  closely  the  ignoble  springs  of  contem 
poraneous  policy,  and  learning  by  what  paltry 
personal  motives  the  noble  opportunities  of  the 
world  are  at  any  given  moment  endangered.  It  is 
a  sad  discovery  that  history  is  so  mainly  made  by 
ignoble  men. 

"Vide  questo  globo 

Tal  ch'ei  sorrise  del  suo  vil  sernbiante." 

In  his  "  Colin  Clout,"  written  just  after  his  return 
to  Ireland,  he  speaks  of  the  court  in  a  tone  of  con 
temptuous  bitterness,  in  which,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
there  is  more  of  the  sorrow  of  disillusion  than  of 
the  gall  of  personal  disappointment.  He  speaks, 
so  he  tells  us,  — 

"  To  warn  young  shepherds'  wandering  wit 
Which,  through  report  of  that  life's  painted  bliss, 
Abandon  quiet  home  to  seek  for  it 
And  leave  their  lambs  to  loss  misled  amiss  ; 
For,  sooth  to  say,  it  is  no  sort  of  life 
For  shepherd  fit  to  live  in  that  same  place, 
Where  each  one  seeks  with  malice  and  with  strife 
To  thrust  down  other  into  foul  disgrace 
Himself  to  raise ;  and  he  doth  soonest  rise 
That  best  can  handle  his  deceitful  wit 
In  subtle  shifts  .  .  . 

To  which  him  needs  a  guileful  hollow  heart 
Masked  with  fair  dissembling  courtesy, 
A  filed  tongue  f  urnisht  with  terms  of  art, 


SPENSER  289 

No  art  of  school,  but  courtiers'  schoolery. 

For  arts  of  school  have  there  small  countenance, 

Counted  but  toys  to  busy  idle  brains, 

And  there  professors  find  small  maintenance, 

But  to  be  instruments  of  others'  gains, 

Nor  is  there  place  for  any  gentle  wit 

Unless  to  please  it  can  itself  apply. 


Even  such  is  all  their  vaunted  vanity, 

Naught  else  but  smoke  that  passeth  soon  away. 

So  they  themselves  for  praise  of  fools  do  sell, 
And  all  their  wealth  for  painting  on  a  wall. 

Whiles  single  Truth  and  simple  Honesty 
Do  wander  up  and  down  despised  of  alL"  x 

And  again  in  his  "Mother  Hubberd's  Tale," 
in  the  most  pithy  and  masculine  verses  he  ever 
wrote :  — 

"  Most  miserable  man,  whom  wicked  Fate 
Hath  brought  to  Court  to  sue  for  Had-I-wist 
That  few  have  found  and  many  one  hath  mist! 
Full  little  knowest  thou  that  hast  not  tried 
What  hell  it  is  in  suing  long  to  bide  ; 
To  lose  good  days  that  might  be  better  spent, 
To  waste  long  nights  in  pensive  discontent, 
To  speed  to-day,  to  be  put  back  to-morrow, 
To  feed  on  hope,  to  pine  with  fear  and  sorrow, 
To  have  thy  prince's  grace  yet  want  her  Peers', 
To  have  thy  asking  yet  wait  many  years, 
To  fret  thy  soul  with  crosses  and  with  cares, 
To  eat  thy  heart  through  comfortless  despairs, 
To  fawn,  to  crouch,  to  wait,  to  ride,  to  run, 
To  spend,  to  give,  to  want,  to  be  undone. 

Whoever  leaves  sweet  home,  where  mean  estate 
In  safe  assurance,  without  strife  or  hate, 

1  Compare  Shakespeare's  LXVI.  Sonnet. 


290  SPEXSER 

Finds  all  things  needful  for  contentment  meek, 
And  •will  to  court  for  shadows  vain  to  seek, 

That  curse  God  send  unto  mine  enemy ! "' 1 

When  Spenser  had  once  got  safely  back  to  the 
secure  retreat  and  serene  companionship  of  his 
great  poem,  with  what  profound  and  pathetic  exul 
tation  must  he  have  recalled  the  verses  of  Dante  I 

"  Chi  dietro  a  jura,  e  chi  ad  aforismi 
Sen  giva,  e  chi  seguendo  sacerdozio, 
E  chi  regnar  per  f orza  o  per  sofismi. 
E  chi  rubare.  e  chi  civil  negozio, 
Chi  nei  diletti  della  came  involto 
S'  affaticava,  e  chi  si  dava  all'  ozio, 
Qnando  da  tiitte  queste  cose  sciolto, 
Con  Beatrice  m'  era  suso  in  cielo 
Cotanto  gloriosamente  accolto."  * 

"What  Spenser  says  of  the  indifference  of  the 
court  to  learning  and  literature  is  the  more  remark 
able  because  he  himself  was  by  no  means  an  un 
successful  suitor.  Queen  Elizabeth  bestowed  on 
him  a  pension  of  fifty  pounds,  and  shortly  after  he 
received  the  grant  of  lands  already  mentioned.  It 
is  said,  indeed,  that  Lord  Burleigh  in  some  way 

1  This  poem,  published  in   1591,  was,  Spenser  tells  us  in  his 
dedication,  "long   sithens  composed   in  the  raw  conceit  of   my 
youth."     But  he  had  evidently  retouched  it.     The  verses  quoted 
show  a  firmer  hand  than  is  generally  seen  in  it,  and  we  are  safe  in 
assuming  that  they  were  added  after  his  visit  to  England.     Dr. 
Johnson  epigrammatized  Spenser's  indictment  into 

'•  There  mark  what  ills  the  scholar's  life  assail, 
Toil,  envy,  want,  the  patron,  and  the  jail," 

but  I  think  it  loses  in  pathos  more  than  it  gains  in  point 

2  Paradiso,  XL  4-12.     Spenser  was  familiar  with  the  Divina 
Commedia,  though  I  do  not  remember  that  his  commentators  have 
pointed  out  his  chief  obligations  to  it. 


SPENSER  291 

hindered  the  advancement  of  the  poet,  who  more 
than  once  directly  alludes  to  him  either  in  reproach 
or  remonstrance.  In  "  The  Ruins  of  Time,"  after 
speaking  of  the  death  of  Walsingham, 

"  Since  whose  decease  learning  lies  unregarded, 
And  men  of  annes  do  wander  unrewarded," 

he  gives  the  following  reason  for  their  neglect :  — 

"  For  he  that  now  wields  all  things  at  his  will. 
Scorns  th'  one  and  th'  other  in  his  deeper  skill. 
O  grief  of  griefs !     O  gall  of  all  good  hearts, 
To  see  that  virtue  should  despised  be 
Of  him  that  first  was  raised  for  virtuous  parts, 
And  now,  broad-spreading  like  an  aged  tree, 
Lets  none  shoot  up  that  nigh  him  planted  be : 
O  let  the  man  of  whom  the  Muse  is  scorned 
Nor  live  nor  dead  be  of  the  Muse  adorned !  " 

And  in  the  introduction  to  the  fourth  book  of  the 
"  Faery  Queen,"  he  says  again :  — 

"  The  rugged  forehead  that  with  grave  foresight 
Wields  kingdoms'  causes  and  affairs  of  state, 
My  looser  rhymes,  I  wot,  doth  sharply  wite 
For  praising  Love,  as  I  have  done  of  late,  — 

By  which  frail  youth  is  oft  to  folly  led 

Through  false  allurement  of  that  pleasing  bait, 

That  better  were  in  virtues  discipled 

Than  with  vain  poems'  weeds  to  have  their  fancies  fed, 

"  Such  ones  ill  judge  of  love  that  cannot  love 
Nor  in  their  frozen  hearts  feel  kindly  flame ; 
Forthy  they  ought  not  thing  unknown  reprove, 
Ne  natural  affection  faultless  blame 
For  fault  of  few  that  have  abused  the  same : 
For  it  of  honor  and  all  virtue  is 
The  root,  and  brings  forth  glorious  flowers  of  fame 
That  crown  true  lovers  with  immortal  bliss, 
The  meed  of  them  that  love  and  do  not  live  amiss." 


292  SPENSER 

If  Lord  Burleigh  could  not  relish  such  a  dish  of 
nightingales'  tongues  as  the  "Faery  Queen,"  he 
is  very  much  more  to  be  pitied  than  Spenser.  The 
sensitive  purity  of  the  poet  might  indeed  well  be 
wounded  when  a  poem  in  which  he  proposed  to 
himself  "to  discourse  at  large  "  of  "the  ethick  part 
of  Moral  Philosophy  "  1  could  be  so  misinterpreted. 
But  Spenser  speaks  in  the  same  strain  and  without 
any  other  than  a  general  application  in  his  "  Tears 
of  the  Muses,"  and  his  friend  Sidney  undertakes 
the  defence  of  poesy  because  it  was  undervalued. 
But  undervalued  by  whom  ?  By  the  only  persons 
about  whom  he  knew  or  cared  anything,  those 
whom  we  should  now  call  Society  and  who  were 
then  called  the  Court.  The  inference  I  would  draw 
is  that,  among  the  causes  which  contributed  to  the 
marvellous  efflorescence  of  genius  in  the  last  quar 
ter  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  influence  of  direct 
patronage  from  above  is  to  be  reckoned  at  almost 
nothing.2  Then,  as  when  the  same  phenomenon 

1  His  own  words  as  reported  by  Lodowick  Bryskett.  (Todd's 
Spenser,  I.  Ix. )  The  whole  passage  is  Tery  interesting  as  giving 
us  the  only  glimpse  we  get  of  the  living  Spenser  in  actual  contact 
with  his  fellow-men.  It  shows  him  to  us,  as  we  could  wish  to  see 
him,  surrounded  with  loving  respect,  companionable  and  helpful. 
Bryskett  tells  us  that  he  was  "  perfect  in  the  Greek  tongue,"  and 
"  also  very  well  read  in  philosophy  both  moral  and  natural."  He 
encouraged  Bryskett  in  the  study  of  Greek,  and  offered  to  help 
him  in  it.  Comparing  the  last  verse  of  the  above  citation  of  the 
Faery  Queen  with  other  passages  in  Spenser,  I  cannot  help  think 
ing  that  he  wrote,  "  do  not  love  amiss." 

"  And  know,  sweet  prince,  when  you  shall  come  to  know, 

That  't  is  not  in  the  power  of  kings  to  raise 

A  spirit  for  verse  that  is  not  born  thereto ; 

Nor  are  they  born  in  every  prince's  days." 

Daniel's  Dedic.  Trag.  of  Philotas. 


SPENSER  293 

has  Happened  elsewhere,  there  must  have  been  a 
sympathetic  public.  Literature,  properly  so  called, 
draws  its  sap  from  the  deep  soil  of  human  nature's 
common  and  everlasting  sympathies,  the  gathered 
leaf-mould  of  countless  generations  (ofy  irep  <f>vX\u>v 
yeveT/),  and  not  from  any  top-dressing  capriciously 
scattered  over  the  surface  at  some  master's  bid 
ding.1  England  had  long  been  growing  more  truly 
insular  in  language  and  political  ideas  when  the 
Reformation  came  to  precipitate  her  national  con 
sciousness  by  secluding  her  more  completely  from 
the  rest  of  Europe.  Hitherto  there  had  been  Eng 
lishmen  of  a  distinct  type  enough,  honestly  hating 
foreigners,  and  reigned  over  by  kings  of  whom 
they  were  proud  or  not  as  the  case  might  be,  but 
there  was  no  England  as  a  separate  entity  from 
the  sovereign  who  embodied  it  for  the  time  being.2 
But  now  an  English  people  began  to  be  dimly 
aware  of  itself.  Their  having  got  a  religion  to 
themselves  must  have  intensified  them  much  as 
the  having  a  god  of  their  own  did  the  Jews.  The 

1  Louis  XIV.  is  commonly  supposed  in  some  miraculous  way  to 
have  created  French  literature.     He  may  more  truly  be  said  to 
have  petrified  it  so  far  as  his  influence  went.     The  French  re 
naissance  in  the  preceding  century  was  produced  by  causes  similar 
in  essentials  to  those  which  brought  about  that  in  England  not 
long  after.     The  grand  siecle  grew  by  natural  processes  of  devel 
opment  out  of  that  which  had  preceded    it,  and  which,   to  the 
impartial  foreigner  at  least,  has  more  flavor,  and  more  French 
flavor  too,  than  the  Gallo-Roman  usurper  that  pushed  it  from  its 
stool.     The  best  modern  French  poetry  has  been  forced  to  temper 
its  verses  in  the  colder  natural  springs  of  the  ante-classic  period. 

2  In    the    Elizabethan    drama,   the    words    "England"    and 
"France"  are  constantly  used   to  signify  the  kings    of  those 
countries. 


294  SPENSER 

exhilaration  of  relief  after  the  long  tension  of  anx 
iety,  when  the  Spanish  Armada  was  overwhelmed 
like  the  hosts  of  Pharaoh,  while  it  confirmed  their 
assurance  of  a  provincial  deity,  must  also  have 
been  like  sunshine  to  bring  into  flower  all  that 
there  was  of  imaginative  or  sentimental  in  the 
English  nature,  already  just  in  the  first  flush  of  its 
spring. 

( "  The  yonge  sonne 
Had  in  the  Bull  half  of  his  course  yronne.") 

And  just  at  this  moment  of  blossoming  every  breeze 
was  dusty  with  the  golden  pollen  of  Greece,  Rome, 
and  Italy.  If  Keats  could  say,  when  he  first 
opened  Chapman's  Homer,  — 

"  Then  felt  I  like  some  watcher  of  the  skies 
When  a  new  planet  swims  into  his  ken ; 
Or  like  stout  Cortez  when  with  eagle  eyes 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific,  and  all  his  men 
Looked  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise," 

if  Keats  could  say  this,  whose  mind  had  been  un 
consciously  fed  with  the  results  of  this  culture,  — 
results  that  permeated  all  thought,  all  literature, 
and  all  talk, — fancy  what  must  have  been  the 
awakening  shock  and  impulse  communicated  to 
men's  brains  by  the  revelation  of  this  new  world  of 
thought  and  fancy,  an  unveiling  gradual  yet  sud 
den,  like  that  of  a  great  organ,  which  discovered 
to  them  what  a  wondrous  instrument  was  in  the 
soul  of  man  with  its  epic  and  lyric  stops,  its  deep 
thunders  of  tragedy  and  its  passionate  vox  Jiumana  ! 
It  might  almost  seem  as  if  Shakespeare  had  typified 
all  this  in  Miranda,  when  she  cries  out  at  first  sight 
of  the  king  and  his  courtiers, 


SPENSER  '      295 

"  O,  wonder ! 

How  many  goodly  creatures  are  there  here ! 
How  beauteous  mankind  is !     O,  brave  new  world 
That  hath  such  people  in  't  I  " 

The  civil  wars  of  the  Roses  had  been  a  barren 
period  in  English  literature,  because  they  had  been 
merely  dynastic  squabbles,  in  which  no  great  prin 
ciples  were  involved  which  could  shake  all  minds 
with  controversy  and  heat  them  to  intense  convic 
tion.  A  conflict  of  opposing  ambitions  wears  out 
the  moral  no  less  than  the  material  forces  of  a 
people,  but  the  ferment  of  hostile  ideas  and  convic 
tions  may  realize  resources  of  character  which 
before  were  only  potential,  may  transform  a  merely 
gregarious  multitude  into  a  nation  proud  in  its 
strength,  sensible  of  the  dignity  and  duty  which 
strength  involves,  and  groping  after  a  common 
ideal.  Some  such  transformation  had  been  wrought 
or  was  going  on  in  England.  For  the  first  time  a 
distinct  image  of  her  was  disengaging  itself  from 
the  tangled  blur  of  tradition  and  association  in  the 
minds  of  her  children,  and  it  was  now  only  that  her 
great  poet  could  speak  exultingly  to  an  audience 
that  would  understand  him  with  a  passionate  sym 
pathy,  of 

"  This  happy  breed  of  men,  this  little  world, 
This  precious  stone  set  in  a  silver  sea, 
This  blessed  plot,  this  earth,  this  realm,  this  England, 
This  land  of  such  dear  souls,  this  dear,  dear  land, 
England,  bound  in  with  the  triumphant  sea  !  " 

Such  a  period  can  hardly  recur  again,  but  some 
thing  like  it,  something  pointing  back  to  similar 
producing  causes,  is  observable  in  the  revival  of 


296  SPENSER 

English  imaginative  literature  at  the  close  of  the 
last  and  in  the  early  years  of  the  present  century. 
Again,  after  long  fermentation,  there  was  a  .war  of 
principles,  again  the  national  consciousness  was 
heightened  and  stung  by  a  danger  to  the  national 
existence,  and  again  there  was  a  crop  of  great  poets 
and  heroic  men. 

Spenser  once  more  visited  England,  bringing 
with  him  three  more  books  of  the  "  Faery  Queen," 
in  1595.  He  is  supposed  to  have  remained  there 
during  the  two  following  years.1  In  1594  he  had 
been  married  to  the  lady  celebrated  in  his  some 
what  artificial  amoretti.  By  her  he  had  four  chil 
dren.  He  was  now  at  the  height  of  his  felicity ; 
by  universal  acclaim  the  first  poet  of  his  age,  and 
the  one  obstacle  to  his  material  advancement  (if 
obstacle  it  was)  had  been  put  out  of  the  way  by 
the  death  of  Lord  Burleigh,  August,  1598.  In  the 
next  month  he  was  recommended  in  a  letter  from 
Queen  Elizabeth  for  the  shrievalty  of  the  county 
of  Cork.  But  alas  for  Polycrates !  In  October 
the  wild  kerns  and  gallowglasses  rose  in  no  mood 
for  sparing  the  house  of  Pindarus.  They  sacked 
and  burned  his  castle,  from  which  he  with  his  wife 
and  children  barely  escaped.2  He  sought  shelter 

1  I  say  supposed,  for  the  names  of  his  two  sons,  Sylvanus  and 
Peregrine,  indicate  that  they  were  born  in  Ireland,  and  that  Spen 
ser  continued  to  regard  it  as  a  wilderness  and  his  abode  there  as 
exile.     The  two  other  children  are  added  on  the  authority  of  a 
pedigree  drawn  up  by  Sir  W.  Betham  and  cited  in  Mr.  Hales's 
Life  of  Spenser  prefixed  to  the  Globe  edition. 

2  Ben  Jonson  told  Drummond  that  one   child  perished  in  the 
flames.     But  he  was  speaking  after  an  interval  of  twenty-one 


SPENSER  297 

in  London,  and  died  there  on  the  16th  January, 
1599,  at  a  tavern  in  King  Street,  Westminster. 
He  was  buried  in  the  neighboring  Abbey  next  to 
Chaucer,  at  the  cost  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  poets 
bearing  his  pall  and  casting  verses  into  his  grave,, 
He  died  poor,  but  not  in  want.  On  the  whole,  his 
life  may  be  reckoned  a  happy  one,  as  in  the  main 
the  lives  of  the  great  poets  must  have  commonly 
been.  If  they  feel  more  passionately  the  pang  of 
the  moment,  so  also  the  compensations  are  incalcu 
lable,  and  not  the  least  of  them  this  very  capacity 
of  passionate  emotion.  The  real  good  fortune  is  to 
be  measured,  not  by  more  or  less  of  outward  pros- 
years,  and,  of  course,  from  hearsay.  Spenser's  misery  was  exag 
gerated  by  succeeding  poets,  who  used  him  to  point  a  moral,  and 
from  the  shelter  of  his  tomb  launched  many  a  shaft  of  sarcasm  at 
an  unappreciative  public.  Phineas  Fletcher  in  his  Purple  Island 
(a  poem  which  reminds  us  of  the  Faery  Queen  by  the  supreme 
tediousness  of  its  allegory,  but  in  nothing  else)  set  the  example  in 
the  best  verse  he  ever  wrote  :  — 

"  Poorly,  poor  man,  he  lived  ;  poorly,  poor  man,  he  died." 
Gradually  this  poetical  tradition  established  itself  firmly  as  au 
thentic  history.  Spenser  could  never  have  been  poor,  except  by 
comparison.  The  whole  story  of  his  later  days  has  a  strong  savor 
of  legend.  He  must  have  had  ample  warning  of  Tyrone's  rebel 
lion,  and  would  probably  have  sent  away  his  wife  and  children  to 
Cork,  if  he  did  not  go  thither  himself.  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  he  did,  carrying  his  papers  with  him,  and  among  them  the 
two  cantos  of  Mutability,  first  published  in  1611.  These,  it  is 
most  likely,  were  the  only  ones  he  ever  completed,  for,  with  all 
his  abundance,  he  was  evidently  a  laborious  finisher.  When  we 
remember  that  ten  years  were  given  to  the  elaboration  of  the  first 
three  books,  and  that  five  more  elapsed  before  the  next  three  were 
ready,  we  shall  waste  no  vain  regrets  on  the  six  concluding  books 
supposed  to  have  been  lost  by  the  carelessness  of  an  imaginary 
servant  on  their  way  from  Ireland. 


298  SPENSER 

perity,  but  by  the  opportunity  given  for  the  devel 
opment  and  free  play  of  the  genius.  It  should  be 
remembered  that  the  power  of  expression  which 
exaggerates  their  griefs  is  also  no  inconsiderable 
consolation  for  them.  We  should  measure  what 
Spenser  says  of  his  worldly  disappointments  by  the 
bitterness  of  the  unavailing  tears  he  shed  for  Rosa- 
linde.  A  careful  analysis  of  these  leaves  no  per 
ceptible  residuum  of  salt,  and  we  are  tempted  to 
believe  that  the  passion  itself  was  not  much  more 
real  than  the  pastoral  accessories  of  pipe  and  crook. 
I  very  much  doubt  whether  Spenser  ever  felt  more 
than  one  profound  passion  in  his  life,  and  that 
luckily  was  for  his  "  Faery  Queen."  He  was  for 
tunate  in  the  friendship  of  the  best  men  and  women 
of  his  tune,  in  the  seclusion  which  made  him  free 
of  the  still  better  society  of  the  past,  in  the  loving 
recognition  of  his  countrymen.  All  that  we  know 
of  him  is  amiable  and  of  good  report.  He  was 
faithful  to  the  friendships  of  his  youth,  pure  in  his 
loves,  unspotted  in  his  life.  Above  all,  the  ideal 
with  him  was  not  a  thing  apart  and  unattainable, 
but  the  sweetener  and  ennobler  of  the  street  and 
the  fireside. 

There  are  two  ways  of  measuring  a  poet,  either 
by  an  absolute  aesthetic  standard,  or  relatively  to 
his  position  in  the  literary  history  of  his  country 
and  the  conditions  of  his  generation.  Both  should 
be  borne  in  mind  as  coefficients  in  a  perfectly  fair 
judgment.  If  his  positive  merit  is  to  be  settled  ir 
revocably  by  the  former,  yet  an  intelligent  criticism 
will  find  its  advantage  not  only  in  considering  what 


SPENSER  299 

he  was,  but  what,  under  the  given  circumstances, 
it  was  possible  for  him  to  be. 

The  fact  that  the  great  poem  of  Spenser  was  in 
spired  by  the  Orlando  of  Ariosto,  and  written  in 
avowed  emulation  of  it,  and  that  the  poet  almost 
always  needs  to  have  his  fancy  set  agoing  by  the 
hint  of  some  predecessor,  must  not  lead  us  to  over 
look  his  manifest  claim  to  originality.  It  is  not 
what  a  poet  takes,  but  what  he  makes  out  of  what 
he  has  taken,  that  shows  what  native  force  is  in 
him.  Above  all,  did  his  mind  dwell  complacently 
in  those  forms  and  fashions  which  in  their  very 
birth  are  already  obsolescent,  or  was  it  instinctively 
drawn  to  those  qualities  which  are  permanent  in 
language  and  whatever  is  wrought  in  it?  There 
is  much  in  Spenser  that  is  contemporary  and  eva 
nescent  ;  hut  the  substance  of  him  is  durable,  and 
his  work  was  the  deliberate  result  of  intelligent 

O 

purpose  and  ample  culture.  The  publication  of 
his  "Shepherd's  Calendar"  in  1579  (though  the 
poem  itself  be  of  little  interest)  is  one  of  the  epochs 
in  our  literature.  Spenser  had  at  least  the  origi 
nality  to  see  clearly  and  to  feel  keenly  that  it  was 
essential  to  bring  poetry  back  again  to  some  kind 
of  understanding  with  nature.  His  immediate  pre 
decessors  seem  to  have  conceived  of  it  as  a  kind 
of  bird  of  paradise,  born  to  float  somewhere  be 
tween  heaven  and  earth,  with  no  very  well  defined 
relation  to  either.  It  is  true  that  the  nearest  ap 
proach  they  were  able  to  make  to  this  airy  ideal 
was  a  shuttlecock,  winged  with  a  bright  plume  or 
so  from  Italy,  but,  after  all,  nothing  but  cork  and 


300  SPENSER 

feathers,  which  they  bandied  back  and  forth  from 
one  stanza  to  another,  with  the  useful  ambition  of 
keeping  it  up  as  long  as  they  could.  To  my  mind 
the  old  comedy  of  "  Gammer  Gurton's  Needle  " 
is  worth  the  whole  of  them.  It  may  be  coarse, 
earthy,  but  in  reading  it  one  feels  that  he  is  at 
least  a  man  among  men,  and  not  a  humbug  among 
humbugs. 

The  form  of  Spenser's  "  Shepherd's  Calendar," 
it  is  true,  is  artificial,  absurdly  so  if  you  look  at  it 
merely  from  the  outside,  —  not,  perhaps,  the  wisest 
way  to  look  at  anything,  unless  it  be  a  jail  or  a 
volume  of  the  "  Congressional  Globe,"  —  but  the 
spirit  of  it  is  fresh  and  original.  We  have  at  last 
got  over  the  superstition  that  shepherds  and  shep 
herdesses  are  any  wiser  or  simpler  than  other  peo 
ple.  We  know  that  wisdom  can  be  won  only  by 
wide  commerce  with  men  and  books,  and  that  sim 
plicity,  whether  of  manners  or  style,  is  the  crowning 
result  of  the  highest  culture.  But  the  pastorals  of 
Spenser  were  very  different  things,  different  both  in 
the  moving  spirit  and  the  resultant  form  from  the 
later  ones  of  Browne  or  the  "  Piscatory  Eclogues  " 
of  Phinehas  Fletcher.  And  why  ?  Browne  and 
Fletcher  wrote  because  Spenser  had  written,  but 
Spenser  wrote  from  a  strong  inward  impulse  —  an 
instinct  it  might  be  called  —  to  escape  at  all  risks 
into  the  fresh  air  from  that  horrible  atmosphere  into 
which  rhymer  after  rhymer  had  been  pumping  car 
bonic-acid  gas  with  the  full  force  of  his  lungs,  and 
in  which  all  sincerity  was  on  the  edge  of  suffocation. 
His  longing  for  something  truer  and  better  was  as 


SPENSER  301 

honest  as  that  which  led  Tacitus  so  long  before  to 
idealize  the  Germans,  and  Eousseau  so  long  after 
to  make  an  angel  of  the  savage. 

Spenser  himself  supremely  overlooks  the  whole 
chasm  between  himself  and  Chaucer,  as  Dante  be 
tween  himself  and  Virgil.  He  called  Chaucer  mas 
ter,  as  Milton  was  afterwards  to  call  him.  And, 
even  while  he  chose  the  most  artificial  of  all  forms, 
his  aim  —  that  of  getting  back  to  nature  and  life  — 
was  conscious,  I  have  no  doubt,  to  himself,  and 
must  be  obvious  to  whoever  reads  with  anything 
but  the  ends  of  his  fingers.  It  is  true  that  Sannaz- 
zaro  had  brought  the  pastoral  into  fashion  again, 
and  that  two  of  Spenser's  are  little  more  than 
translations  from  Marot ;  but  for  manner  he  in 
stinctively  turned  back  to  Chaucer,  the  first  and 
then  only  great  English  poet.  He  has  given  com 
mon  instead  of  classic  names  to  his  personages, 
for  characters  they  can  hardly  be  called.  Above 
all,  he  has  gone  to  the  provincial  dialects  for  words 
wherewith  to  enlarge  and  freshen  his  poetical  vo 
cabulary.1  I  look  upon  the  "  Shepherd's  Calen- 

1  Sir  Philip  Sidney  did  not  approve  of  this.  ' '  That  same  fram 
ing1  of  his  style  to  an  old  rustic  language  I  dare  not  allow,  since 
neither  Theocritus  in  Greek,  Virgil  in  Latin,  nor  Sannazzaro  in 
Italian  did  affect  it."  (Defence  of  Poesy.)  Ben  Jonson,  on  the 
other  hand,  said  that  Guarini  ' '  kept  not  decorum  in  making 
shepherds  speak  as  well  as  himself  could."  (Conversations  with 
Drummond.)  I  think  Sidney  was  right,  for  the  poets'  Arcadia 
is  a  purely  ideal  world,  and  should  be  treated  accordingly.  But 
whoever  looks  into  the  glossary  appended  to  the  Calendar  by 
E.  K.,  will  be  satisfied  that  Spenser's  object  was  to  find  unhack 
neyed  and  poetical  words  rather  than  such  as  should  seem  more  on 
a  level  with  the  speakers.  See  also  the  Epistle  Dedicatory.  I 
cannot  help  thinking  that  £.  K.  was  Spenser  himself,  with  occa- 


802  SPENSER 

dar  "  as  being  no  less  a  conscious  and  deliberate  at 
tempt  at  reform  than  Thomson's  "  Seasons  "  were 
in  the  topics,  and  Wordsworth's  "  Lyrical  Ballads  " 
in  the  language  of  poetry.  But  the  great  merit 
of  these  pastorals  was  not  so  much  in  their  mat 
ter  as  their  manner.  They  show  a  sense  of  style 
in  its  larger  meaning  hitherto  displayed  by  no 
English  poet  since  Chaucer.  Surrey  had  brought 
back  from  Italy  a  certain  inkling  of  it,  so  far  as 
it  is  contained  in  decorum.  But  here  was  a  new 
language,  a  choice  and  arrangement  of  words,  a 
variety,  elasticity,  and  harmony  of  verse  most 
grateful  to  the  ears  of  men.  If  not  passion,  there 
was  fervor,  which  was  perhaps  as  near  it  as  the 
somewhat  stately  movement  of  Spenser's  mind 
would  allow  him  to  come.  Sidney  had  tried  many 
experiments  in  versification,  which  are  curious  and 
interesting,  especially  his  attempts  to  naturalize  the 
sliding  rhymes  of  Sannazzaro  in  English.  But 
there  is  everywhere  the  uncertainty  of  a  'prentice 
hand.  Spenser  shows  himself  already  a  master,  at 
least  in  verse,  and  we  can  trace  the  studies  of  Mil 
ton,  a  yet  greater  master,  in  the  "  Shepherd's  Cal 
endar  "  as  well  as  in  the  "  Faery  Queen."  We 
have  seen  that  Spenser,  under  the  misleading  in 
fluence  of  Sidney 1  and  Harvey,  triect  his  hand  at 
English  hexameters.  But  his  great  glory  is  that 
he  taught  his  own  language  to  sing  and  move  to 
measures  harmonious  and  noble.  Chaucer  had 

sional  interjections  of  Harvey.  Who  else  could  have  •written  such 
English  as  many  passages  in  this  Epistle  ? 

1  It  was  at  Penshurst  that  he  wrote  the  only  specimen  that  has 
come  down  to  us,  and  bad  enough  it  is.  I  have  said  that  some  of 
Sidney's  are  pleasing. 


SPENSER  303 

done  much  to  vocalize  it,  as  I  have  tried  to  show 
elsewhere,1  but  Spenser  was  to  prove 

"  That  no  tongue  hath  the  muse's  utterance  heired 
For  verse,  and  that  sweet  music  to  the  ear 
Struck  out  of  rhyme,  so  naturally  as  this." 

The  "  Shepherd's  Calendar  "  contains  perhaps  the 
most  picturesquely  imaginative  verse  which  Spen 
ser  has  written.  It  is  in  the  eclogue  for  February, 
where  he  tells  us  of  the 

"Faded  oak 

Whose  body  is  sere,  whose  branches  broke, 
Whose  naked  arms  stretch  unto  the  fire." 

It  is  one  of  those  verses  that  Joseph  Warton  would 
have  liked  in  secret,  that  Dr.  Johnson  would  have 
proved  to  be  untranslatable  into  reasonable  prose, 
and  which  the  imagination  welcomes  at  once  with 
out  caring  whether  it  be  exactly  conformable  to 
barbara  or  celarent.  Another  pretty  verse  in  the 
same  eclogue, 

"  But  gently  took  that  ungeutly  came," 

pleased  Coleridge  so  greatly  that  he  thought  it  was 
his  own.  But  in  general  it  is  not  so  much  the  sen 
timents  and  images  that  are  new  as  the  modula 
tion  of  the  verses  in  which  they  float.  The  cold 
obstruction  of  two  centuries  thaws,  and  the  stream 
of  speech  once  more  let  loose,  seeks  out  its  old 
windings,  or  overflows  musically  in  unpractised 
channels.  The  service  which  Spenser  did  to  our 
literature  by  this  exquisite  sense  of  harmony  is  in 
calculable.  His  fine  ear,  abhorrent  of  barbarous 
dissonance,  his  dainty  tongue  that  loves  to  prolong 
1  See  Literary  Essays,  iii.  338  seqq. 


804  SPENSER 

the  relish  of  a  musical  phrase,  made  possible  the 
transition  from  the  cast-iron  stiffness  of  "  Ferrex 
and  Porrex  "  to  the  Damascus  pliancy  of  Fletcher 
and  Shakespeare.  It  was  he  that 

.  "  Taught  the  dumb  on  high  to  sing, 

And  heavy  ignorance  aloft  to  fly : 
That  added  feathers  to  the  learned's  wing1, 
And  gave  to  grace  a  double  majesty." 

I  do  not  mean  that  in  the  "  Shepherd's  Calen 
dar  "  he  had  already  achieved  that  transmutation 
of  language  and  metre  by  which  he  was  afterwards 
to  endow  English  verse  with  the  most  varied  and 
majestic  of  stanzas,  in  which  the  droning  old 
alexandrine,  awakened  for  the  first  time  to  a  feel 
ing  of  the  poetry  that  was  in  him,  was  to  wonder, 
like  M.  Jourdain,  that  he  had  been  talking  prose 
all  his  life,  —  but  already  he  gave  clear  indications 
of  the  tendency  and  premonitions  of  the  power 
which  were  to  carry  it  forward  to  ultimate  perfec 
tion.  A  harmony  and  alacrity  of  language  like 
this  were  unexampled  in  English  verse :  — 

"  Ye  dainty  nymphs,  that  in  this  blessed  brook 

Do  bathe  your  breast, 
Forsake  your  watery  bowers  and  hither  look 

At  my  request.  .  .  . 

And  eke  you  virgins  that  on  Parnass  dwell, 
Whence  floweth  Helicon,  the  learned  well, 

Help  me  to  blaze 

Her  worthy  praise, 
Which  in  her  sex  doth  all  excel. " 

Here  we  have  the  natural  gait  of  the  measure,  some 
what  formal  and  slow,  as  befits  an  invocation ,  and 
now  mark  how  the  same  feet  shall  be  made  to 
quicken  their  pace  at  the  bidding  of  the  tune :  — 


SPENSER  305 

"  Bring  here  the  pink  and  purple  columbine, 

With  gilliflowers ; 
Bring  coronations  and  sops  in  wine, 

Worne  of  paramours ; 

Strow  me  the  ground  with  daffadowndillies, 
And  cowslips  and  king-cups  and  loved  lilies ; 

The  pretty  paunce 

And  the  chevisance 
Shall  match  with  the  fair  flowerdelice."  l 

The  argument  prefixed  by  E.  K.  to  the  tenth 
Eclogue  has  a  special  interest  for  us  as  showing 
how  high  a  conception  Spenser  had  of  poetry  and 
the  poet's  office.  By  Cuddy  he  evidently  means 
himself,  though  choosing  out  of  modesty  another 

1  Of  course  ditties  and  lilies  must  be  read  with  a  slight  accen 
tuation  of  the  last  syllable  (permissible  then),  in  order  to  chime 
with  delice.  In  the  first  line  I  have  put  here  instead  of  hether, 
which  (like  other  words  where  th  comes  between  two  vowels)  was 
then  very  often  a  monosyllable,  in  order  to  throw  the  accent  back 
more  strongly  on  bring,  where  it  belongs.  Spenser's  innovation 
lies  in  making  his  verses  by  ear  instead  of  on  the  finger-tips,  and 
in  valuing  the  stave  more  than  any  of  the  single  verses  that 
compose  it.  This  is  the  secret  of  his  easy  superiority  to  all  others 
in  the  stanza  which  he  composed,  and  which  bears  his  name.  Mil 
ton  (who  got  more  of  his  schooling  in  these  matters  from  Spenser 
than  anywhere  else)  gave  this  principle  a  greater  range,  and  ap 
plied  it  with  more  various  mastery.  I  have  little  doubt  that  the 
tune  of  the  last  stanza  cited  above  was  clinging  in  Shakespeare's 
ear  when  he  wrote  those  exquisite  verses  in  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream  ("  I  know  a  bank  "),  where  our  grave  pentameter  is  in 
like  manner  surprised  into  a  lyrical  movement.  See  also  the 
pretty  song  in  the  eclogue  for  August.  Ben  Jonson,  too,  evi 
dently  caught  some  cadences  from  Spenser  for  his  lyrics.  I  need 
hardly  say  that  in  those  eclogues  (May,  for  example)  where  Spen 
ser  thought  he  was  imitating  what  wiseacres  used  to  call  the  rid 
ing-rhyme  of  Chaucer,  he  fails  most  lamentably.  He  had  evidently 
learned  to  scan  his  master's  verses  better  when  he  wrote  hig  Mother 
Hubberd's  Tale. 


806  SPENSER 

name  instead  of  the  familiar  Colin.  "  In  Cuddy 
is  set  forth  the  perfect  pattern  of  a  Poet,  which, 
finding  no  maintenance  of  his  state  and  studies, 
complaineth  of  the  contempt  of  Poetry  and  the 
causes  thereof,  specially  having  been  in  all  ages, 
and  even  amongst  the  most  barbarous,  always  of 
singular  account  and  honor,  and  being  indeed  so 
worthy  and  commendable  an  art,  or  rather  no  art, 
but  a  divine  gift  and  heavenly  instinct  not  to  be 
gotten  by  labor  and  learning,  but  adorned  with 
both,  and  poured  into  the  wit  by  a  certain  Enthou- 
siasmos  and  celestial  inspiration,  as  the  author 
hereof  elsewhere  at  large  discourseth  in  his  book 
called  THE  ENGLISH  POET,  which  book  being 
lately  come  into  my  hands,  I  mind  also  by  God's 
grace,  upon  further  advisement,  to  publish."  E.  K., 
whoever  he  was,  never  carried  out  his  intention, 
and  the  book  is  no  doubt  lost ;  a  loss  to  be  borne 
with  less  equanimity  than  that  of  Cicero's  treatise 
De  Gloria,  once  possessed  by  Petrarch.  The  pas 
sage  I  have  italicized  is  most  likely  an  extract,  and 
reminds  one  of  the  long-breathed  periods  of  Milton. 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden  tells  us,  "he  [Ben 
Jonson]  hath  by  heart  some  verses  of  Spenser's 
4  Calendar,'  about  wine,  between  Coline  and  Per- 
cye  "  (Cuddie  and  Piers).1  These  verses  are  in 
this  eclogue,  and  are  worth  quoting  both  as  having 
the  approval  of  dear  old  Ben,  the  best  critic  of  the 
day,  and  because  they  are  a  good  sample  of  Spen 
ser's  earlier  verse :  — 

1  Drummond.  it  will  be  remarked,  speaking  from  memory,  takes 
Cuddy  to  be  Colin.     In  Milton's  Lycidas  there  are  reminiscences 


SPENSER  307 

"  Thou  kenst  not,  Percie,  how  the  rhyme  should  rage  ; 
O,  if  my  temples  were  distained  with  wine, 
And  girt  in  garlands  of  wild  ivy-twine, 
How  I  could  rear  the  Muse  on  stately  stage 

And  teach  her  tread  aloft  in  buskin  fine 
With  quaint  Bellona  in  her  equipage  !  " 

In  this  eclogue  he  gives  hints  of  that  spacious 
style  which  was  to  distinguish  him,  and  which,  like 
his  own  Fame, 

"  With  golden  wings  aloft  doth  fly 
Above  the  reach  of  ruinous  decay, 
And  with  brave  plumes  doth  beat  the  azure  sky, 
Admired  of  base-born  men  from  far  away."  * 

He  was  letting  his  wings  grow,  as  Milton  said,  and 
foreboding  the  "  Faery  Queen  "  :  — 

of  this  eclogue  as  well  as  of  that  for  May.  The  latter  are  tihe 
more  evident,  but  I  think  that  Spenser's 

"  Cuddle,  the  praise  is  better  than  the  price," 
suggested  Milton's 

"  But  not  the  praise, 

Phoebus  replied,  and  touched  my  trembling  ears." 
Shakespeare  had  read  and  remembered  this  pastoral.     Compare 

"  But,  ah,  Maecenas  is  yclad  in  clay, 
And  great  Augustus  long  ago  is  dead, 
And  all  the  worthies  liggen  wrapt  in  lead," 
with 

"  King  Pandion,  he  is  dead  ; 

All  thy  friends  are  lapt  in  lead." 

It  is  odd  that  Shakespeare,  in  his  "  fapt  in  lead,"  is  more  SpeUv 
serian  than  Spenser  himself,  from  whom  he  caught  this  ' '  hunting 
of  the  letter." 

1  Ruins  of  Time.  It  is  perhaps  not  considering  too  nicely 
to  remark  how  often  this  image  of  wings  recurred  to  Spenser's 
mind.  A  certain  aerial  latitude  was  essential  to  the  large  circlings 
of  his  style. 


308  SPENSER 

"  Lift  thyself  up  out  of  the  lowly  dust 


To  'doubted  knights  whose  woundless  armor  rusts 
And  helms  unbruise'd  waxen  daily  brown : 
There  may  thy  Muse  display  her  fluttering  wing, 
And  stretch  herself  at  large  from  East  to  West." 

Verses  like  these,  especially  the  last  (which  Dry  den 
would  have  liked),  were  such  as  English  ears 
had  not  yet  heard,  and  curiously  prophetic  of  the 
maturer  man.  The  language  and  verse  of  Spen 
ser  at  his  best  have  an  ideal  lift  in  them,  and  there 
is  scarce  any  of  our  poets  who  can  so  hardly  help 
being  poetical. 

It  was  this  instantly  felt  if  not  easily  definable 
charm  that  forthwith  won  for  Spenser  his  never- 
disputed  rank  as  the  chief  English  poet  of  that 
age,  and  gave  him  a  popularity  which,  during  his 
life  and  in  the  following  generation,  was,  in  its 
select  quality,  without  a  competitor.  It  may  be 
thought  that  I  lay  too  much  stress  on  this  single 
attribute  of  diction.  But  apart  from  its  impor 
tance  in  his  case  as  showing  their  way  to  the  poets 
who  were  just  then  learning  the  accidence  of  their 
art,  and  leaving  them  a  material  to  work  in  already 
mellowed  to  their  hands,  it  should  be  remembered 
that  it  is  subtle  perfection  of  phrase  and  that 
happy  coalescence  of  music  and  meaning,  where 
each  reinforces  the  other,  that  define  a  man  as  poet 
and  make  all  ears  converts  and  partisans.  Spenser 
was  an  epicure  in  language.  He  loved  "  seld-seen 
costly  "  words  perhaps  too  well,  and  did  not  always 
distinguish  between  mere  strangeness  and  that  nov 
elty  which  is  so  agreeable  as  to  cheat  us  with  some 


SPENSER  309 

charm  of  seeming  association.  He  had  not  the  con 
centrated  power  which  can  sometimes  pack  infinite 
riches  in  the  little  room  of  a  single  epithet,  for  his 
genius  is  rather  for  dilation  than  compression.1 
But  he  was,  with  the  exception  of  Milton  and  pos 
sibly  Gray,  the  most  learned  of  our  poets.  His 
familiarity  with  ancient  and  modern  literature  was 
easy  and  intimate,  and  as  he  perfected  himself  in 
his  art,  he  caught  the  grand  manner  and  high-bred 
ways  of  the  society  he  frequented.  But  even  to 
the  last  he  did  not  quite  shake  off  the  blunt  rusti 
city  of  phrase  that  was  habitual  with  the  genera 
tion  that  preceded  him.  In  the  fifth  book  of  the 
"  Faery  Queen,"  where  he  is  describing  the  passion 
of  Britomart  at  the  supposed  infidelity  of  Arthe- 
gall,  he  descends  to  a  Teniers-like  realism,2  —  he 

1  Perhaps  his  most  striking  single  epithet  is  the  ' '  sea-shoulder 
ing  whales,"  B.  II.  12,  xxiii.    His  ear  seems  to  delight  in  prolon 
gations.     For  example,  he  makes  such  words  as  glorious,  gratious, 
joyeous,  havior,   chapelet  dactyls,    and   that,   not    at  the    end   of 
verses,  where  it  would  not  have  been  unusual,  but  in  the  first 
half  of  them.     Milton  contrives  a  break  (a  kind  of  heave,  as  it 
were)  in  the  uniformity  of  his  verse  by  a  practice  exactly  the  op 
posite  of  this.     He  also  shuns  a  hiatus  which  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  generally  displeasing  to  Spenser's  ear,  though  perhaps 
in  the  compound  epithet  bees-alluring  he  intentionally  avoids  it  by 
the  plural  form. 

2  "  Like  as  a  wayward  child,  whose  sounder  sleep 

Is  broken  with  some  fearful  dream's  affright, 
With  froward  will  doth  set  himself  to  weep 
Ne  can  be  stilled  for  all  his  nurse's  might, 
But  kicks  and  squalls  and  shrieks  for  fell  despight, 
Now  scratching  her  and  her  loose  locks  misusing, 
Now  seeking  darkness  and  now  seeking  light, 
Then  craving  suck,  and  then  the  suck  refusing." 
He  would  doubtless  have   justified   himself  by  the  familiar 


310  SPENSER 

whose  verses  generally  remind  us  of  the  dancing 
Hours  of  Guido,  where  we  catch  but  a  glimpse  of 
the  real  earth  and  that  far  away  beneath.  But 
his  habitual  style  is  that  of  gracious  loftiness  and 
refined  luxury. 

He  first  shows  his  mature  hand  in  the  "  Muiopot- 
mos,"  the  most  airily  fanciful  of  his  poems,  a  mar 
vel  for  delicate  conception  and  treatment,  whose 
breezy  verse  seems  to  float  between  a  blue  sky  and 
golden  earth  in  imperishable  sunshine.  No  other 
English  poet  has  found  the  variety  and  compass 
which  enlivened  the  octave  stanza  under  his  sensi 
tive  touch.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  in  Cla 
rion  the  butterfly  he  has  symbolized  himself,  and 
surely  never  was  the  poetic  temperament  so  pictur 
esquely  exemplified :  — 

"  Over  the  fields,  in  his  frank  lustiness, 
And  all  the  champaign  o'er,  he  soared  light, 
And  all  the  country  wide  he  did  possess, 
Feeding  npon  their  pleasures  bounteously, 
That  none  gainsaid  and  none  did  him  envy. 

"  The  woods,  the  rivers,  and  the  meadows  green, 
With  his  air-cutting  wings  he  measured  wide, 
Nor  did  he  leave  the  mountains  bare  unseen, 
Nor  the  rank  grassy  fens'  delights  untried ; 
But  none  of  these,  however  sweet  they  been, 
Mote  please  his  fancy,  or  him  cause  to  abide ; 
His  choicef ul  sense  with  every  change  doth  flit ; 
No  common  things  may  please  a  wavering  wit. 

example  of  Homer's  comparing  Ajax  to  a  donkey  in  the  eleventh 
book  of  the  Iliad.  So  also  in  the  Epithalamion  it  grates  our  nerves 
to  hear, 

"  Pour  not  by  cups,  but  by  the  bellyful, 

Pour  out  to  all  that  wull." 

Such  examples  serve  to  show  how  strong  a  dose  of  Spenser's  au- 
rum  potabile  the  language  needed. 


SPENSER  311 

"  To  the  gay  gardens  his  unstaid  desire 

Him  wholly  carried,  to  refresh  his  sprights ; 
There  lavish  Nature,  iii  her  hest  attire, 
Pours  forth  sweet  odors  and  alluring  sights, 
And  Art,  with  her  contending  doth  aspire, 
To  excel  the  natural  with  made  delights  ; 
And  all  that  fair  or  pleasant  may  be  found, 
In  riotous  excess  doth  there  abound. 

"  There  he  arriving,  round  about  doth  flie, 
From  bed  to  bed,  from  one  to  the  other  border, 
And  takes  survey  with  curious  busy  eye, 
Of  every  flower  and  herb  there  set  in  order, 
Now  this,  now  that,  he  tasteth  tenderly, 
Yet  none  of  them  he  rudely  doth  disorder, 
Ne  with  his  feet  their  silken  leaves  displace, 
But  pastures  on  the  pleasures  of  each  place. 

"  And  evermore  with  most  variety 
And  change  of  sweetness  (for  all  change  is  sweet) 
He  casts  his  glutton  sense  to  satisfy, 
Now  sucking  of  the  sap  of  herbs  most  meet, 
Or  of  the  dew  which  yet  on  them  doth  lie, 
Now  in  the  same  bathing  his  tender  feet ; 
And  then  he  percheth  on  some  branch  thereby 
To  weather  him  and  his  moist  wings  to  dry. 

"  And  then  again  he  turneth  to  his  play, 
To  spoil  [plunder]  the  pleasures  of  that  paradise ; 
The  wholesome  sage,  the  lavender  still  gray, 
Rank-smelling  rue,  and  cummin  good  for  eyes, 
The  roses  reigning  in  the  pride  of  May, 
Sharp  hyssop  good  for  green  wounds'  remedies, 
Fair  marigolds,  and  bees-alluring  thyme, 
Sweet  marjoram  and  daisies  decking  prime, 

"  Cool  violets,  and  orpine  growing  still, 
Embathed  balm,  and  cheerful  galingale, 
Fresh  costmary  and  breathf  ul  camomill, 
Dull  poppy  and  drink-quickening  setuale, 
Vein-healing  vervain  and  head-purging  dill, 


312  SPENSER 

Sound  savory,  and  basil  hearty-hale, 
Fat  coleworts  and  comforting  perseline, 
Cold  lettuce,  and  refreshing  rosemarine.1 

"  And  whatso  else  of  virtue  good  or  ill, 
Grew  in  this  garden,  fetched  from  far  away, 
Of  every  one  he  takes  and  tastes  at  will, 
And  on  their  pleasures  greedily  doth  prey ; 
Then,  when  he  hath  both  played  and  fed  his  fill, 
In  the  warm  sun  he  doth  himself  embay, 
And  there  him  rests  in  riotous  suffisance 
Of  all  his  gladfulness  and  kingly  joyance. 

"  What  more  felicity  can  fall  to  creature 
Than  to  enjoy  delight  with  liberty, 
And  to  be  lord  of  all  the  works  of  nature  ? 
To  reign  in  the  air  from  earth  to  highest  sky, 
To  feed  on  flowers  and  weeds  of  glorious  feature, 
To  take  whatever  thing  doth  please  the  eye  ? 
Who  rests  not  pleased  with  such  happiness, 
Well  worthy  he  to  taste  of  wretchedness." 

The  "  Muiopotmos  "  pleases  us  all  the  more  that 
it  vibrates  in  us  a  string  of  classical  association  by 
adding  an  episode  to  Ovid's  story  of  Arachne. 
"Talking  the  other  day  with  a  friend  (the  late 
Mr.  Keats)  about  Dante,  he  observed  that  when 
ever  so  great  a  poet  told  us  anything  in  addition  or 
continuation  of  an  ancient  story,  he  had  a  right  to 
be  regarded  as  classical  authority.  For  instance, 
said  he,  when  he  tells  us  of  that  characteristic 
death  of  Ulysses,  ...  we  ought  to  receive  the  in- 

1  I  could  not  bring  myself  to  root  out  this  odorous  herb-garden, 
though  it  make  my  extract  too  long.  It  is  a  pretty  reminiscence 
of  his  master  Chaucer,  but  is  also  very  characteristic  of  Spenser 
himself.  He  could  not  help  planting  a  flower  or  two  among  his 
serviceable  plants,  and  after  all  this  abundance  he  is  not  satisfied, 
but  begins  the  next  stanza  with  "And  whatso  else." 


SPENSER  313 

formation  as  authentic,  and  be  glad  that  we  have 
more  news  of  Ulysses  than  we  looked  for."  l  We 
can  hardly  doubt  that  Ovid  would  have  been  glad 
to  admit  this  exquisitely  fantastic  illumination  into 
his  margin. 

No  German  analyzer  of  aesthetics  has  given  us  so 
convincing  a  definition  of  the  artistic  nature  as 
these  radiant  verses.  "  To  reign  in  the  air  "  was 
certainly  Spenser's  function.  And  yet  the  com 
mentators,  who  seem  never  willing  to  let  their  poet 
be  a  poet  pure  and  simple,  though,  had  he  not  been 
so,  they  would  have  lost  their  only  hold  upon  life, 
try  to  make  out  from  his  "Mother  Hubberd's 
Tale "  that  he  might  have  been  a  very  sensible 
matter-of-fact  man  if  he  would.  For  my  own  part, 
I  am  quite  willing  to  confess  that  I  like  him  none 
the  worse  for  being  tmpractical,  and  that  my  read 
ing  has  convinced  me  that  being  too  poetical  is  the 
rarest  fault  of  poets.  Practical  men  are  not  so 
scarce,  one  would  think,  and  I  am  not  sure  that 
the  tree  was  a  gainer  when  the  hamadryad  flitted 
and  left  it  nothing  but  ship-timber.  Such  men  as 
Spenser  are  not  sent  into  the  world  to  be  part  of 
its  motive  power.  The  blind  old  engine  would  not 
know  the  difference  though  we  got  up  its  steam 
with  attar  of  roses,  nor  make  one  revolution  more 
to  the  minute  for  it.  What  practical  man  ever  left 
such  an  heirloom  to  his  countrymen  as  the  "  Faery 
Queen  "  ? 

Undoubtedly  Spenser  wished  to  be  useful  and  in 
the  highest  vocation  of  all,  that  of  teacher,  and 
1  Leigh  Hunt's  Indicator,  XVII. 


314  SPENSER 

Milton  calls  him  "  our  sage  and  serious  poet,  whom 
I  dare  be  known  to  think  a  better  teacher  than 
Scotus  or  Aquinas."  And  good  Dr.  Henry  More 
was  of  the  same  mind.  I  fear  he  makes  his  vices 
so  beautiful  now  and  then  that  we  should  not  be 
very  much  afraid  of  them  if  we  chanced  to  meet 
them;  for  he  could  not  escape  from  his  genius, 
which,  if  it  led  him  as  philosopher  to  the  abstract 
contemplation  of  the  beautiful,  left  him  as  poet  open 
to  every  impression  of  sensuous  delight.  When  he 
wrote  the  "  Shepherd's  Calendar  "  he  was  certainly 
a  Puritan,  and  probably  so  by  conviction  rather 
than  from  any  social  influences  or  thought  of  per 
sonal  interests.  There  is  a  verse,  it  is  true,  in  the 
second  of  the  two  detached  cantos  of  "  Mutability," 

"  Like  that  ungracious  crew  -which  feigns  demurest  grace, " 

which  is  supposed  to  glance  at  the  straiter  religion 
ists,  and  from  which  it  has  been  inferred  that  he 
drew  away  from  them  as  he  grew  older.  It  is  very 
likely  that  years  and  widened  experience  of  men 
may  have  produced  in  him  their  natural  result  of 
tolerant  wisdom  which  revolts  at  the  hasty  destruc- 
tiveness  of  inconsiderate  zeal.  But  with  the  more 
generous  side  of  Puritanism  I  think  he  sympa 
thized  to  the  last.  His  rebukes  of  clerical  world- 
liness  are  in  the  Puritan  tone,  and  as  severe  a  one 
as  any  is  in  "  Mother  Hubberd's  Tale,"  published 
in  1591.1  There  is  an  iconoclastic  relish  in  his 

1  Ben  Jonson  told  Drummond  "  that  in  that  paper  Sir  W. 
Raleigh  had  of  the  allegories  of  his  Faery  Queen,  by  the  Blatant 
Beast  the  Puritans  were  understood."  But  this  is  certainly  wrong 
There  were  very  different  shades  of  Puritanism,  according  to  in- 


SPENSER  315 

account  of  Sir  Guyon's  demolishing  the  Bower  of 
Bliss  that  makes  us  think  he  would  not  have  re 
gretted  the  plundered  abbeys  as  perhaps  Shake 
speare  did  when  he  speaks  of  the  winter  woods 
as  "  bare  ruined  choirs  where  late  the  sweet  birds 
sang  " :  — 

"  But  all  those  pleasant  bowers  and  palace  brave 
Guyon  broke  down  with  rigor  pitiless, 
Ne  ought  their  goodly  workmanship  might  save 
Them  from  the  tempest  of  his  wrathfulness, 
But  that  their  bliss  he  turned  to  balef  ulness  ; 
Their  groves  he  felled,  their  gardens  did  deface, 
Their  arbors  spoil,  their  cabinets  suppress, 
Their  banquet-houses  burn,  their  buildings  rase, 
And  of  the  fairest  late  now  made  the  foulest  place." 

But  whatever  may  have  been  Spenser's  religious 
opinions  (which  do  not  nearly  concern  us  here), 
the  bent  of  his  mind  was  toward  a  Platonic  mys 
ticism,  a  supramundane  sphere  where  it  could 
shape  universal  forms  out  of  the  primal  elements 
of  things,  instead  of  being  forced  to  put  up  with 
their  fortuitous  combinations  in  the  unwilling  ma 
terial  of  mortal  clay.  He  who,  when  his  singing 
robes  were  on,  could  never  be  tempted  nearer  to 
the  real  world  than  under  some  subterfuge  of  pas 
toral  or  allegory,  expatiates  joyously  in  this  un 
trammelled  ether :  — 

dividual  temperament.  That  of  Winthrop  and  Higginson  had  a 
mellowness  of  which  Endicott  and  Standish  were  incapable.  The 
gradual  change  of  Milton's  opinions  was  similar  to  that  which  I 
suppose  in  Spenser.  The  passage  in  Mother  Hubberd  may  have 
been  aimed  at  the  Protestant  clergy  of  Ireland  (for  he  says  much 
the  same  thing  in  his  View  of  the  State  of  Ireland),  but  it  is  gen 
eral  in  its  terms. 


816  SPENSER 

"  Lifting  himself  out  of  the  lowly  dust 
On  golden  plumes  up  to  the  purest  sky." 

Nowhere  does  his  genius  soar  and  sing  with  such 
continuous  aspiration,  nowhere  is  his  phrase  so 
decorously  stately,  though  rising  to  an  enthusiasm 
which  reaches  intensity  while  it  stops  short  of  vehe 
mence,  as  in  his  Hymns  to  Love  and  Beauty,  es 
pecially  the  latter.  There  is  an  exulting  spurn  of 
earth  in  it,  as  of  a  soul  just  loosed  from  its  cage. 
I  shall  make  no  extracts  from  it,  for  it  is  one  of 
those  intimately  coherent  and  transcendentally  log 
ical  poems  that  "  moveth  altogether  if  it  move  at 
all,"  the  breaking  off  a  fragment  from  which  would 
maim  it  as  it  would  a  perfect  group  of  crystals. 
Whatever  there  is  of  sentiment  and  passion  is  for 
the  most  part  purely  disembodied  and  without  sex, 
like  that  of  angels,  —  a  kind  of  poetry  which  has 
of  late  gone  out  of  fashion,  whether  to  our  gain  or 
not  may  be  questioned.  Perhaps  one  may  venture 
to  hint  that  the  animal  instincts  are  those  that 
stand  in  least  need  of  stimulation.  Spenser's  no 
tions  of  love  were  so  nobly  pure,  so  far  from  those 
of  our  common  ancestor  who  could  hang  by  his  tail, 
as  not  to  disqualify  him  for  achieving  the  quest  of 
the  Holy  Grail,  and  accordingly  it  is  not  uninstruc- 
tive  to  remember  that  he  had  drunk,  among  others, 
at  French  sources  not  yet  deboshed  with  absinthe.1 

1  Two  of  his  eclogues,  as  I  have  said,  are  from  Marot,  and  his 
earliest  known  verses  are  translations  from  Bellay,  a  poet  who 
was  charming  whenever  he  had  the  courage  to  play  truant  from 
a  had  school.  We  must  not  suppose  that  an  analysis  of  the  liter 
ature  of  the  demi-monde  will  give  us  all  the  elements  of  the  French 
character.  It  has  been  both  grave  and  profound ;  nay,  it  has  even 


SPENSER  317 

Yet,  with  a  purity  like  that  of  thrice-bolted  snow, 
he  had  none  of  its  coldness.  He  is,  of  all  our  poets, 
the  most  truly  sensuous,  using  the  word  as  Milton 
probably  meant  it  when  he  said  that  poetry  should 
be  "  simple,  sensuous,  and  passionate."  A  poet  is 
innocently  sensuous  when  his  mind  permeates  and 
illumines  his  senses ;  when  they,  on  the  other  hand, 
muddy  the  mind,  he  becomes  sensual.  Every  one 
of  Spenser's  senses  was  as  exquisitely  alive  to  the 
impressions  of  material,  as  every  organ  of  his  soul 
was  to  those  of  spiritual  beauty.  Accordingly,  if 
he  painted  the  weeds  of  sensuality  at  all,  he  could 
not  help  making  them  "  of  glorious  feature."  It 
was  this,  it  may  be  suspected,  rather  than  his 
44  praising  love,"  that  made  Lord  Burleigh  shake 
his  "  rugged  forehead."  Spenser's  gamut,  indeed, 
is  a  wide  one,  ranging  from  a  purely  corporeal  de 
light  in  "precious  odors  fetched  from  far  away" 
upward  to  such  refinement  as 

"  Upon  her  eyelids  many  graces  sate 
Under  the  shadow  of  her  even  brows," 

where  the  eye  shares  its  pleasure  with  the  mind. 
He  is  court-painter  in  ordinary  to  each  of  the  senses 
in  turn,  and  idealizes  these  frail  favorites  of  his 
majesty  King  Lusty  Juventus,  till  they  half  believe 
themselves  the  innocent  shepherdesses  into  which 
he  travesties  them.1 

contrived  to  be  wise  and  lively  at  the  same  time,  a  combination  so 
incomprehensible  by  the  Teutonic  races  that  they  have  labelled  it 
levity.  It  puts  them  out  as  Nature  did  Fuseli. 

1  Taste  must  be  partially  excepted.  It  is  remarkable  how  little 
eating  and  drinking  there  is  in  the  Faery  Queen.  The  only  time 
he  fairly  sets  a  table  is  in  the  house  of  Malbecco,  where  it  is 


318  SPENSER 

In  Ms  great  poem  he  had  two  objects  in  view : 
first,  the  ephemeral  one  of  pleasing  the  court,  and 
then  that  of  recommending  himself  to  the  perma 
nent  approval  of  his  own  and  following  ages  as  a 
poet,  and  especially  as  a  moral  poet.  To  meet  the 
first  demand,  he  lays  the  scene  of  his  poem  in  con 
temporary  England,  and  brings  in  all  the  leading 
personages  of  the  day  under  the  thin  disguise  of 
his  knights  and  their  squires  and  lady-loves.  He 
says  this  expressly  in  the  prologue  to  the  second 
book :  — 

"  Of  Faery  Land  yet  if  he  more  inquire, 
By  certain  signs,  here  set  in  sundry  place, 
He  may  it  find ;  .  .  . 
And  thou,  O  fairest  princess  under  sky, 
In  this  fair  mirror  mayst  behold  thy  face 
And  thine  own  realms  in  land  of  Faery." 

Many  of  his  personages  we  can  still  identify,  and 
all  of  them  were  once  as  easily  recognizable  as 
those  of  Mademoiselle  de  Scudery.  This,  no  doubt, 
added  greatly  to  the  immediate  piquancy  of  the 
allusions.  The  interest  they  would  excite  may  be 
inferred  from  the  fact  that  King  James,  in  1596, 
wished  to  have  the  author  prosecuted  and  punished 

necessary  to  the  conduct  of  the  story.     Yet  taste  is  not  wholly 

forgotten :  — 

"  In  her  left  hand  a  cup  of  gold  she  held, 
And  with  her  right  the  riper  fruit  did  reach, 
Whose  sappy  liquor,  that  with  fulness  sweld, 
Into  her  cup  she  scruzed  with  dainty  breach 
Of  her  fine  fingers  without  foul  impeach, 
That  so  fair  wine-press  made  the  wine  more  sweet." 
(B.  II.  c.  xii.  56.) 

Taste  can  hardly  complain  of  unhandsome  treatment ! 


SPENSER  319 

for  his  indecent  handling  of  his  mother,  Mary 
Queen  of  Scots,  under  the  name  of  Duessa.1  To 
suit  the  wider  application  of  his  plan's  other  and 
more  important  half,  Spenser  made  all  his  charac 
ters  double  their  parts,  and  appear  in  his  allegory 
as  the  impersonations  of  abstract  moral  qualities. 
When  the  cardinal  and  theological  virtues  tell 
Dante, 

"  Noi  siam  qui  ninfe  e  in  ciel  sianio  stelle," 

the  sweetness  of  the  verse  enables  the  fancy,  by  a 
slight  gulp,  to  swallow  without  solution  the  prob 
lem  of  being  in  two  places  at  the  same  time.  But 
there  is  something  fairly  ludicrous  in  such  a  dual 
ity  as  that  of  Prince  Arthur  and  the  Earl  of 
Leicester,  Arthegall  and  Lord  Grey,  and  Belphcebe 
and  Elizabeth. 

"  In  this  same  interlude  it  doth  befall 
That  I,  one  Snout  by  name,  present  a  wall." 

The  reality  seems  to  heighten  the  improbability, 
already  hard  enough  to  manage.  But  Spenser 
had  fortunately  almost  as  little  sense  of  humor  as 

1  Had  the  poet  lived  longer,  he  might  perhaps  have  verified  his 
friend  Raleigh's  saying,  that  "  whosoever  in  writing  modern  his 
tory  shall  follow  truth  too  near  the  heels,  it  may  haply  strike  out 
his  teeth."  The  passage  is  one  of  the  very  few  disgusting  ones  in 
the  Faery  Queen.  Spenser  was  copying  Ariosto ;  but  the  Ital 
ian  poet,  with  the  discreeter  taste  of  his  race,  keeps  to  generali 
ties.  Spenser  goes  into  particulars  which  can  only  be  called  nasty. 
He  did  this,  no  doubt,  to  pleasure  his  mistress,  Mary's  rival ;  and 
this  gives  us  a  measure  of  the  brutal  coarseness  of  contemporary 
manners.  It  becomes  only  the  more  marvellous  that  the  fine 
flower  of  his  genius  could  have  transmuted  the  juices  of  such  a 
soil  into  the  purity  and  sweetness  which  are  its  own  peculiar  prop 
erties. 


320  SPENSER 

Wordsworth,1  or  he  could  never  have  carried  his 
poem  on  with  enthusiastic  good  faith  so  far  as  he 
did.  It  is  evident  that  to  him  the  Land  of  Faery 
was  an  unreal  world  of  picture  and  illusion, 

"  The  world's  sweet  inn  from  pain  and  wearisome  turmoil," 

in  which  he  could  shut  himself  up  from  the  actual, 
with  its  shortcomings  and  failures. 

"  The  ways  through  which  my  weary  steps  I  guide 

In  this  delightful  land  of  Faery 
Are  so  exceeding  spacious  and  wide, 
And  sprinkled  with  such  sweet  variety 
Of  all  that  pleasant  is  to  ear  and  eye, 
That  I,  nigh  ravisht  with  rare  thoughts'  delight, 

My  tedious  travail  do  forget  thereby, 
And,  when  I  'gin  to  feel  decay  of  might, 
It  strength  to  me  supplies,  and  cheers  my  dulled  spright." 

Spenser  seems  here  to  confess  a  little  weariness ; 
but  the  alacrity  of  his  mind  is  so  great  that,  even 
where  his  invention  fails  a  little,  we  do  not  share 
his  feeling  nor  suspect  it,  charmed  as  we  are  by 
the  variety  and  sweep  of  his  measure,  the  beauty 
or  vigor  of  his  similes,  the  musical  felicity  of  his 
diction,  and  the  mellow  versatility  of  his  pictures. 
In  this  last  quality  Ariosto,  whose  emulous  pupil  he 
was,  is  as  Bologna  to  Venice  in  the  comparison. 
That,  when  the  personal  allusions  have  lost  their 
meaning  and  the  allegory  has  become  a  burden,  the 

1  There  is  a  gleam  of  humor  in  one  of  the  couplets  of  Mother 
Hubberd's  Tale,  where  the  Fox,  persuading  the  Ape  that  they 
should  disguise  themselves  as  discharged  soldiers  in  order  to  beg 
the  more  successfully,  says,  — 

"  Be  you  the  soldier,  for  you  likest  are 
For  manly  semblance  and  small  skill  in  war." 


SPENSER  321 

book  should  continue  to  be  read  with  delight,  is 
proof  enough,  were  any  wanting,  how  full  of  life 
and  light  and  the  other-worldliness  of  poetry  it 
must  be.  As  a  narrative  it  has,  I  think,  every 
fault  of  which  that  kind  of  writing  is  capable. 
The  characters  are  vague,  and,  even  were  they  not, 
they  drop  out  of  the  story  so  often  and  remain  out 
of  it  so  long,  that  we  have  forgotten  who  they  are 
when  we  meet  them  again  ;  the  episodes  hinder  the 
advance  of  the  action  instead  of  relieving  it  with 
variety  of  incident  or  novelty  of  situation  ;  the  plot, 
if  plot  it  may  be  called, 

"  That  shape  has  none 
Distinguishable  in  member,  joint,  or  limb," 

recalls  drearily  our  ancient  enemy,  the  Metrical 
Romance  ;  while  the  fighting,  which  in  those  old 
poems  was  tediously  sincere,  is  between  shadow 
and  shadow,  where  we  know  that  neither  can  harm 
the  other,  though  we  are  tempted  to  wish  he  might. 
Hazlitt  bids  us  not  mind  the  allegory,  and  says 
that  it  won't  bite  us  nor  meddle  with  us  if  we  do 
not  meddle  with  it.  But  how  if  it  bore  us,  which 
after  all  is  the  fatal  question  ?  The  truth  is  that 
it  is  too  often  forced  upon  us  against  our  will,  as 
people  were  formerly  driven  to  church  till  they  be 
gan  to  look  on  a  day  of  rest  as  a  penal  institution, 
and  to  transfer  to  the  Scriptures  that  suspicion  of 
defective  inspiration  which  was  awakened  in  them 
by  the  preaching.  The  true  type  of  the  allegory  is 
the  Odyssey,  which  we  read  without  suspicion  as 
pure  poem,  and  then  find  a  new  pleasure  in  divin 
ing  its  double  meaning,  as  if  we  somehow  got  a 


322  SPENSER 

better  bargain  of  our  author  than  he  meant  to  give 
us.  But  this  complex  feeling  must  not  be  so  exact 
ing  as  to  prevent  our  lapsing  into  the  old  Arabian 
Nights  simplicity  of  interest  again.  The  moral  of 
a  poem  should  be  suggested,  as  when  in  some  medi- 
seval  church  we  cast  down  our  eyes  to  muse  over  a 
fresco  of  Giotto,  and  are  reminded  of  the  transito- 
riness  of  life  by  the  mortuary  tablets  under  our  feet. 
The  vast  superiority  of  Bunyan  over  Spenser  lies 
in  the  fact  that  we  help  make  his  allegory  out  of 
our  own  experience.  Instead  of  striving  to  embody 
abstract  passions  and  temptations,  he  has  given  us 
his  own  in  all  their  pathetic  simplicity.  He  is  the 
Ulysses  of  his  own  prose-epic.  This  is  the  secret 
of  his  power  and  his  charm,  that,  while  the  repre 
sentation  of  what  may  happen  to  all  men  comes 
home  to  none  of  us  in  particular,  the  story  of 
any  one  man's  real  experience  finds  its  startling 
parallel  in  that  of  every  one  of  us.  The  very 
homeliness  of  Bunyan's  names  and  the  everyday- 
ness  of  his  scenery,  too,  put  us  off  our  guard,  and 
we  soon  find  ourselves  on  as  easy  a  footing  with 
his  allegorical  beings  as  we  might  be  with  Adam 
or  Socrates  in  a  dream.  Indeed,  he  has  prepared 
us  for  such  incongruities  by  telling  us  at  setting 
out  that  the  story  was  of  a  dream.  The  long 
nights  of  Bedford  jail  had  so  intensified  his  imagi 
nation,  and  made  the  figures  with  which  it  peopled 
his  solitude  so  real  to  him,  that  the  creatures  of  his 
mind  become  things,  as  clear  to  the  memory  as  if 
we  had  seen  them.  *But  Spenser's  are  too  often 
mere  names,  with  no  bodies  to  back  them,  entered 


SPENSER  323 

on  the  Muses'  muster-roll  by  the  specious  trick  of 
personification.  There  is,  likewise,  in  Bunyan,  a 
childlike  simplicity  and  taking-for-granted  which 
win  our  confidence.  His  Giant  Despair,1  for  ex 
ample,  is  by  no  means  the  Ossianic  figure  into 
which  artists  who  mistake  the  vague  for  the  sub 
lime  have  misconceived  it.  He  is  the  ogre  of  the 
fairy-tales,  with  his  malicious  wife  ;  and  he  comes 
forth  to  us  from  those  regions  of  early  faith  and 
wonder  as  something  beforehand  accepted  by  the 
imagination.  These  figures  of  Bunyan's  are  al 
ready  familiar  inmates  of  the  mind,  and,  if  there 
be  any  sublimity  in  him,  it  is  the  daring  frankness 
of  his  verisimilitude.  Spenser's  giants  are  those 
of  the  later  romances,  except  that  grand  figure 
with  the  balances  in  the  second  Canto  of  Book  V., 
the  most  original  of  all  his  conceptions,  yet  no  real 
giant,  but  a  pure  eidolon  of  the  mind.  As  Bunyan 
rises  not  seldom  to  a  natural  poetry,  so  Spenser 
sinks  now  and  then,  through  the  fault  of  his  topics, 
to  unmistakable  prose.  Take  his  description  of  the 
House  of  Alma,2  for  instance  :  — 

"  The  master  cook  was  cald  Concoction, 

A  careful  man,  and  full  of  comely  guise ; 
The  kitchen-clerk,  that  hight  Digestion, 
Did  order  all  the  achates  in  seemly  wise." 

And  so  on  through  all  the  organs  of  the  body. 
The  author  of  Ecclesiastes  understood  these  mat 
ters  better  in  that  last  pathetic  chapter  of  his,  blun- 

1  Bunyan  probably  took  the  hint  of  the  Giant's  suicidal  offer 
of  "  knife,  halter,   or  poison,"  from  Spenser's  "  swords,  ropes, 
poison,"  in  Faery  Queen,  B.  I.  c.  ix.  1. 

2  Book  IL  c.  9. 


324  SPENSER 

deringly  translated  as  it  apparently  is.  This,  I 
admit,  is  the  worst  failure  of  Spenser  in  this  kind  ; 
though,  even  here,  when  he  gets  on  to  the  organs 
of  the  mind,  the  enchantments  of  his  fancy  and 
style  come  to  the  rescue  and  put  us  in  good-humor 
again,  hard  as  it  is  to  conceive  of  armed  knights 
entering  the  chamber  of  the  mind,  and  talking  with 
such  visionary  damsels  as  Ambition  and  Shame- 
fastness.  Nay,  even  in  the  most  prosy  parts,  un 
less  my  partiality  deceive  me,  there  is  an  infantile 
confidence  in  the  magical  powers  of  Prosopopreia 
which  half  beguiles  us,  as  of  children  who  play  that 
everything  is  something  else,  and  are  quite  satis 
fied  with  the  transformation. 

The  problem  for  Spenser  was  a  double  one  :  how 
to  commend  poetry  at  all  to  a  generation  which 
thought  it  effeminate  trifling,1  and  how  he,  Master 
Edmund  Spenser,  of  imagination  all  compact,  could 
dbmmend  his  poetry  to  Master  John  Bull,  the  most 
practical  of  mankind  in  his  habitual  mood,  but  at 
.that  moment  in  a  passion  of  religious  anxiety  about 
his  soul.  Omne  tulit  punctum  qui  miscuit  utile 
dulci  was  not  only  an  irrefragable  axiom  because  a 
Latin  poet  had  said  it,  but  it  exactly  met  the  case 
in  point.  He  would  convince  the  scorners  that 
poetry  might  be  seriously  useful,  and  show  Master 
Bull  his  new  way  of  making  fine  words  butter  pars 
nips,  in  a  rhymed  moral  primer.  Allegory,  as  then 
practised,  was  imagination  adapted  for  beginners, 
in  words  of  one  syllable  and  illustrated  with  cuts, 

1  See  Sidney's  Defence,  and  Pnttenham's  Art  of  English  Poesy, 
Book  I.  c.  8. 


SPENSER  325 

and  would  thus  serve  both  his  ethical  and  pictorial 
purpose.  Such  a  primer,  or  a  first  instalment  of  it, 
he  proceeded  to  put  forth ;  but  he  so  bordered  it 
with  bright-colored  fancies,  he  so  often  filled  whole 
pages  and  crowded  the  text  hard  in  others  with  the 
gay  frolics  of  his  pencil,  that,  as  in  the  Grimani  mis 
sal,  the  holy  function  of  the  book  is  forgotten  in  the 
ecstasy  of  its  adornment.  Worse  than  all,  does  not 
his  brush  linger  more  lovingly  along  the  rosy  con 
tours  of  his  sirens  than  on  the  modest  wimples  of 
the  Wise  Virgins  ?  "  The  general  end  of  the  book," 
he  tells  us  in  his  Dedication  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh, 
"  is  to  fashion  a  gentleman  of  noble  person  in  virtu 
ous  and  gentle  discipline."  But  a  little  further  on 
he  evidently  has  a  qualm,  as  he  thinks  how  gener 
ously  he  had  interpreted  his  promise  of  cuts :  "  To 
some  I  know  this  method  will  seem  displeasant, 
which  had  rather  have  good  discipline  delivered 
plainly  in  way  of  precepts  or  sermoned  at  large,1  as 
they  use,  than  thus  cloudily  enwrapped  in  allegor 
ical  devices."  Lord  Burleigh  was  of  this  way  of 
thinking,  undoubtedly,  but  how  could  poor  Clarion 
help  it  ?  Has  he  not  said, 

' '  And  whatso  else  of  virtue  good  or  ill, 

Grew  in  this  garden,  fetcht  from  far  away, 
Of  every  one  he  takes  and  tastes  at  will, 

And  on  their  pleasures  greedily  doth  prey  "  ? 

One  sometimes  feels  in  reading  him  as  if  he  were 
the  pure  sense  of  the  beautiful  incarnated  to  the 
one  end  that  he  might  interpret  it  to  our  duller  per- 

1  We  can  fancy  how  he  would  have  done  this  by  Jeremy  Taylor, 
who  was  a  kind  of  Spenser  in  a  cassock. 


326  SPENSER 

ceptions.  So  exquisite  was  his  sensibility,1  that 
with  him  sensation  and  intellection  seem  identical, 
and  we  "  can  almost  say  his  body  thought."  This 
subtle  interfusion  of  sense  with  spirit  it  is  that 
gives  his  poetry  a  crystalline  purity  without  lack  of 
warmth.  He  is  full  of  feeling,  and  yet  of  such  a 
kind  that  we  can  neither  say  it  is  mere  intellectual 
perception  of  what  is  fair  and  good,  nor  yet  asso 
ciate  it  with  that  throbbing  fervor  which  leads  us 
to  call  sensibility  by  the  physical  name  of  heart. 

Charles  Lamb  made  the  most  pithy  criticism  of 
Spenser  when  he  called  him  the  poets'  poet.  We 
may  fairly  leave  the  allegory  on  one  side,  for  per 
haps,  after  all,  he  adopted  it  only  for  the  reason 
that  it  was  in  fashion,  and  put  it  on  as  he  did  his 
ruff,  not  because  it  was  becoming,  but  because  it 
was  the  only  wear.  The  true  use  of  him  is  as  a 
gallery  of  pictures  which  we  visit  as  the  mood  takes 
us,  and  where  we  spend  an  hour  or  two  at  a  time, 
long  enough  to  sweeten  our  perceptions,  not  so  long 
as  to  cloy  them.  He  makes  one  think  always  of 
Venice  ;  for  not  only  is  his  style  Venetian,2  but  as 

1  Of  this  he  himself  gives  a  striking  hint,  where  speaking  in  his 
own  person  he  suddenly  breaks  in  on  his  narrative  with  the  pas 
sionate  cry, 

"  Ah,  dearest  God,  me  grant  I  dead  be  not  defouled." 

(Faery  Queen,  B.  I.  c.  x.  43.) 

a  Was  not  this  picture  painted  by  Paul  Veronese,  for  example  ? 
' '  Arachne  figured  how  Jove  did  abuse 
Europa  like  a  bull,  and  on  his  back 
Her  through  the  sea  did  bear  :   .   .  . 
She  seemed  still  back  unto  the  land  to  look, 
And  her  playfellows'  aid  to  call,  and  fear 
The  dashing  of  th«  waves,  that  up  she  took 


SPENSER  327 

the  gallery  there  is  housed  in  the  shell  of  an  aban 
doned  convent,  so  his  in  that  of  a  deserted  allegory. 
And  again,  as  at  Venice  you  swim  in  a  gondola 
from  Gian  Bellini  to  Titian,  and  from  Titian  to 
Tintoret,  so  in  him,  where  other  cheer  is  wanting, 
the  gentle  sway  of  his  measure,  like  the  rhythmical 
impulse  of  the  oar,  floats  you  lullingly  along  from 
picture  to  picture. 

"  If  all  the  pens  that  ever  poet  held 
Had  fed  the  feeling  of  their  master's  thoughts, 
And  every  sweetness  that  inspired  their  hearts 
Their  minds  and  muses  on  admired  themes, 
If  all  the  heavenly  quintessence  they  still 
From  their  immortal  flowers  of  poesy, 
If  these  had  made  one  poem's  period, 
And  all  combined  in  beauty's  worthiness  ; 
Yet  should  there  hover  in  their  restless  heads 
One  thought,  one  grace,  one  wonder  at  the  best, 
Which  into  words  no  virtue  can  digest."  l 

Spenser  at  his  best,  has  come  as  near  to  expressing 
this  unattainable  something  as  any  other  poet.  He 
is  so  purely  poet  that  with  him  the  meaning  does 
not  so  often  modulate  the  music  of  the  verse  as  the 
music  makes  great  part  of  the  meaning  and  leads 

Her  dainty  feet,  and  garments  gathered  near.  .  .  . 
Before  the  bull  she  pictured  winged  Lore, 
With  his  young  brother  Sport,  .  .  . 
And  many  nymphs  about  them  flocking  round, 
And  many  Tritons  which  their  horns  did  sound. " 

(Muiopotmos,  281-296.) 

Spenser  begins  a  complimentary  sonnet  prefixed  to  the  Common 
wealth  and  Government  of  Venice  (1599)  with  this  beautiful  verse, 
"  Fail-  Venice,  flower  of  the  last  world's  delight." 

Perhaps  we  should  read  "  lost "  ? 

1  Marlowe's  Tamburlaine,  Part  I.  Act  V.  2. 


328  SPENSER 

the  thought  along  its  pleasant  paths.  No  poet  is 
so  splendidly  superfluous  as  he ;  none  knows  so 
well  that  in  poetry  enough  is  not  only  not  so  good 
as  a  feast,  but  is  a  beggarly  parsimony.  He  spends 
himself  in  a  careless  abundance  only  to  be  justified 
by  incomes  of  immortal  youth. 

"  Pensier  cannto  ne  molto  ne  poco 
Si  pub  quivi  albergare  in  alcun  cuore  ; 
Non  entra  quivi  disagio  ne  inopia, 
Ma  vi  sta  ogn'or  col  corno  pien  la  Copia."  1 

This  delicious  abundance  and  overrunning  lux 
ury  of  Spenser  appear  in  the  very  structure  of  his 
verse.  He  found  the  ottava  rima  too  monoto 
nously  iterative ;  so,  by  changing  the  order  of  his 
rhymes,  he  shifted  the  couplet  from  the  end  of  the 
stave,  where  it  always  seems  to  put  on  the  brakes 
with  a  jar,  to  the  middle,  where  it  may  serve  at 
will  as  a  brace  or  a  bridge  ;  he  found  it  not  roomy 
enough,  so  first  ran  it  over  into  another  line,  and 
then  ran  that  added  line  over  into  an  alexandrine,  in 
which  the  melody  of  one  stanza  seems  forever  long 
ing  and  feeling  forward  after  that  which  is  to  fol 
low.  There  is  no  ebb  and  flow  in  his  metre  more 
than  on  the  shores  of  the  Adriatic,  but  wave  fol 
lows  wave  with  equable  gainings  and  recessions, 
the  one  sliding  back  in  fluent  music  to  be  mingled 
with  and  carried  forward  by  the  next.  In  all  this 
there  is  soothingness  indeed,  but  no  slumberous 
monotony  ;  for  Spenser  was  no  mere  metrist,  but  a 

1 "  Grayheaded  Thought,  nor  much  nor  little,  may 
Take  up  its  lodging  here  in  any  heart  ; 
Unease  nor  Lack  can  enter  at  this  door  ; 
But  here  dwells  full-horned  Plenty  evermore." 

(Or/.  Fur.,  c.  ri.  73.) 


SPENSER  329 

great  composer.  By  the  variety  of  his  pauses  — 
now  at  the  close  of  the  first  or  second  foot,  now  of 
the  third,  and  again  of  the  fourth  —  he  gives  spirit 
and  energy  to  a  measure  whose  tendency  it  certainly 
is  to  become  languorous.  He  knew  how  to  make  it 
rapid  and  passionate  at  need,  as  in  such  verses  as, 

"  But  he,  my  lion,  and  my  noble  lord, 
How  does  he  find  in  cruel  heart  to  hate 
Her  that  him.  loved  and  ever  most  adored 
As  the  God  of  my  life  ?     Why  hath  he  me  abhorred  ?  " l 

or  this, 

"  Come  hither,  come  hither,  O,  come  hastily !  "  2 

Joseph  Warton  objects  to  Spenser's  stanza,  that  its 
"constraint  led  him  into  many  absurdities."  Of 
these  he  instances  three,  of  which  I  shall  notice 
only  one,  since  the  two  others  (which  suppose  him 
at  a  loss  for  words  and  rhymes)  will  hardly  seem 
valid  to  any  one  who  knows  the  poet.  It  is  that  it 
"  obliged  him  to  dilate  the  thing  to  be  expressed, 
however  unimportant,  with  trifling  and  tedious  cir 
cumlocutions,  namely,  Faery  Queen,  II.  ii.  44  :  — 

'  Now  hath  fair  Phoebe  with  her  silver  face 

Thrice  seen  the  shadows  of  this  nether  world, 
Sith  last  I  left  that  honorable  place, 
In  which  her  royal  presence  is  enrolled.' 

That  is,  it  is  three  months  since  I  left  her  palace."  3 

1  Faery  Queen,  I.  c.  iii.  7.    Leigh  Hunt,  one  of  the  most  sympa 
thetic  of  critics,  has  remarked  the  passionate  change  from  the 
third  to  the  first  person  in  the  last  two  verses. 

2  Faery  Queen,  II.  c.  viii.  3. 

8  Observations  on  Faery  Queen,  vol.  i.  pp.  158,  159.  Mr.  Hughes 
also  objects  to  Spenser's  measure,  that  it  is  "  closed  always  by  a 
full-stop,  in  the  same  place,  by  which  every  stanza  is  made  as  it 


830  SPENSER 

But  Dr.  Warton  should  have  remembered  (what 
he  too  often  forgets  in  his  own  verses)  that,  in  spite 
of  Dr.  Johnson's  dictum,  poetry  is  not  prose,  and 
that  verse  only  loses  its  advantage  over  the  latter 
by  invading  its  province.1  Verse  itself  is  an  ab 
surdity  except  as  an  expression  of  some  higher 
movement  of  the  mind,  or  as  an  expedient  to  lift 
other  minds  to  the  same  ideal  level.  It  is  the  co 
thurnus  which  gives  language  an  heroic  stature.  I 
have  said  that  one  leading  characteristic  of  Spen 
ser's  style  was  its  spaciousness,  that  he  habitually 
dilates  rather  than  compresses.  But  his  way  of 
measuring  time  was  perfectly  natural  in  an  age 
when  everybody  did  not  carry  a  dial  in  his  poke  as 
now.  He  is  the  last  of  the  poets,  who  went  (with 
out  affectation)  by  the  great  clock  of  the  firma 
ment.  Dante,  the  miser  of  words,  who  goes  by  the 
same  timepiece,  is  full  of  these  roundabout  ways  of 
telling  us  the  hour.  It  had  nothing  to  do  with 
Spenser's  stanza,  and  I  for  one  should  be  sorry  to 

were  a  distinct  paragraph."  (Todd's  Spenser,  II.  xli. )  But  he 
could  hardly  have  read  the  poem  attentively,  for  there  are  numer 
ous  instances  to  the  contrary.  Spenser  was  a  consummate  master 
of  versification,  and  not  only  did  Marlowe  and  Shakespeare  learn 
of  him,  but  I  have  little  doubt  that,  but  for  the  Faery  Queen,  we 
should  never  have  had  the  varied  majesty  of  Milton's  blank 
Terse. 

1  As  where  Dr.  Warton  himself  says :  — 
"  How  nearly  had  my  spirit  past, 

Till  stopt  by  Metcalf 's  skilful  hand, 
To  death's  dark  regions  wide  and  waste 

And  the  black  river's  mournful  strand, 
Or  to,"  etc., 

to  the  end  of  the  next  stanza.  That  is,  I  had  died  but  for  Dr. 
Metcalf 's  boluses. 


SPENSER  331 

lose  these  stately  revolutions  of  the  superne  ruote. 
Time  itself  becomes  more  noble  when  so  measured ; 
we  never  knew  before  of  how  precious  a  commodity 
we  had  the  wasting.  Who  would  prefer  the  plain 
time  of  day  to  this  ? 

"  Now  when  Aldebaran  was  mounted  high 
Above  the  starry  Cassiopeia's  chair ' ' ; 

or  this? 

"  By  this  the  northern  wagoner  had  set 

His  seven-fold  team  behind  the  steadfast  star 

That  was  in  ocean's  waves  yet  never  wet, 
But  firm  is  fixt  and  sendeth  light  from  far 

To  all  that  in  the  wide  deep  wandering  are  " ; 

or  this? 

"  At  last  the  golden  oriental  gate 

Of  greatest  heaven  gan  to  open  fair, 
And  Phoebus,  fresh  as  bridegroom  to  bis  mate, 
Came  dancing  forth,  shaking  his  dewy  hair 
And'hurls  his  glistening  beams  through  dewy  air." 

The  generous  indefiniteness,  which  treats  an  hour 
more  or  less  as  of  no  account,  is  in  keeping  with 
that  sense  of  endless  leisures  which  it  is  one  chief 
merit  of  the  poem  to  suggest.  But  Spenser's  dila 
tation  extends  to  thoughts  as  well  as  to  phrases 
and  images.  He  does  not  love  the  concise.  Yet 
his  dilatation  is  not  mere  distension,  but  the  expan 
sion  of  natural  growth  in  the  rich  soil  of  his  own 
mind,  wherein  the  merest  stick  of  a  verse  puts  forth 
leaves  and  blossoms.  Here  is  one  of  his,  suggested 
by  Homer : l  — 

1  Iliad,  XVII.  55  seqq.  Referred  to  in  Upton's  note  on  Faery 
Queen,  B.  I.  c.  vii.  32.  Into  what  a  breezy  couplet  trailing  off 
with  an  alexandrine  has  Homer's  icvoial  iramoiwv  avt^w  ex- 


832  SPENSER 

"  Upon  the  top  of  all  his  lofty  crest 
A  bunch  of  hairs  discolored  diversly, 
With  sprinkled  pearl  and  gold  full  richly  drest, 
Did  shake,  and  seemed  to  dance  for  jollity  ; 
Like  to  an  almond-tree  ymounted  high 
On  top  of  green  Selinus  all  alone 
With  blossoms  brave  bedecked  daintily, 
Whose  tender  locks  do  tremble  every  one 

At  every  little  breath  that  under  heaven  is  blown." 

And  this  is  the  way  he  reproduces  five  pregnant 
rerses  of  Dante :  — 

"  Seggendo  in  pinrna 
In  fama  non  si  vien,  ne  sotto  coltre, 
Senza  la  qual  chi  sua  vita  consuma, 
Cotal  vestigio  in  terra  di  se  lascia 
Qual  fnmo  in  aere  ed  in  acqua  la  scliiuma."1 

"  Whoso  in  pomp  of  proud  estate,  quoth  she, 
Does  swim,  and  bathes  himself  in  courtly  bliss, 
Does  waste  his  days  in  dark  obscurity 
And  in  oblivion  ever  buried  is  ; 
Where  ease  abounds  it  'a  eath  to  do  amiss : 
But  who  his  limbs  with  labors  and  his  mind 
Behaves  with  cares,  cannot  so  easy  miss. 

panded !     Chapman  unfortunately  has  slurred  this  passage  in  his 
version,  and  Pope  tittivated  it  more  than  usual  in  his.     I  have  no 
other  translation  at  hand.     Marlowe  was  so  taken  by  this  passage 
in  Spenser  that  he  put  it  bodily  into  his  Tamburlaine. 
i  Inferno,  XXIV.  46-52. 

"  For  sitting  upon  down, 
Or  under  quilt,  one  cometh  not  to  fame, 
Withonten  which  whoso  his  life  consumes 
Such  vestige  leaveth  of  himself  on  earth 
As  smoke  in  air  or  in  the  water  foam." 

(Longfellow.) 

It  shows  how  little  Dante  was  read  during  the  last  century  that 
none  of  the  commentators  on  Spenser  notice  his  most  important 
obligations  to  the  great  Tuscan. 


SPENSER  333 

Abroad  in  arms,  at  home  in  studious  kind, 
Who  seeks  with  painful  toil  shall  Honor  soonest  find. 

"  In  woods,  in  waves,  in  wars,  she  wonts  to  dwell, 

And  will  be  found  with  peril  and  with  pain, 

Ne  can  the  man  that  moulds  in  idle  cell 

Unto  her  happy  mansion  attain ; 

Before  her  gate  high  God  did  Sweat  ordain, 

And  wakeful  watches  ever  to  abide  ; 

But  easy  is  the  way  and  passage  plain 

To  pleasure's  palace ;  it  may  soon  be  spied, 
And  day  and  night  her  doors  to  all  stand  open  wide." 1 

Spenser's  mind  always  demands  this  large  elbow- 
room.  His  thoughts  are  never  pithily  expressed, 
-but  with  a  stately  and  sonorous  proclamation,  as  if 
under  the  open  sky,  that  seems  to  me  very  noble. 
For  example,  — 

"  The  noble  heart  that  harbors  virtuous  thought 
And  is  with  child  of  glorious-great  intent 
Can  never  rest  until  it  forth  have  brought 
The  eternal  brood  of  glory  excellent."  2 

One's  very  soul  seems  to  dilate  with  that  last  verse. 
And  here  is  a  passage  which  Milton  had  read  and 
remembered :  — 

"  And  is  there  care  in  Heaven  ?  and  is  there  love 
In  heavenly  spirits  to  these  creatures  base, 
That  may  compassion  of  their  evils  move  ? 
There  is  :  else  much  more  wretched  were  the  case 
Of  men  than  beasts :   but  0,  the  exceeding  grace 
Of  highest  God,  that  loves  his  creatures  so, 
And  all  his  works  with  mercy  doth  embrace, 
That  blessed  angels  he  sends  to  and  fro, 

To  serve  to  wicked  man,  to  serve  his  wicked  foe  I 

' '  How  oft  do  they  their  silver  bowers  leave, 
To  come  to  succor  us  that  succor  want  1 

1  Faery  Queen,  B.  II.  c.  iii.  40,  41. 

2  Ibid.,  I.  c.  v.  J. 


334  SPENSER 

How  oft  do  they  with  golden  pinions  cleaye 
The  fleeting  skies  like  flying  pursuivant, 
Against  foul  fiends  to  aid  us  militant ! 
They  for  us  fight,  they  watch  and  duly  ward, 
And  their  bright  squadrons  round  about  us  plant ; 
And  all  for  love  and  nothing  for  reward ; 
O,  why  should  heavenly  God  to  men  have  such  regard  ?  " l 

His  natural  tendency  is  to  shun  whatever  is  sharp 
and  abrupt.  He  loves  to  prolong  emotion,  and  lin 
gers  in  his  honeyed  sensations  like  a  bee  in  the 
translucent  cup  of  a  lily.  So  entirely  are  beauty 
and  delight  in  it  the  native  element  of  Spenser, 
that,  whenever  in  the  "  Faery  Queen  "  you  come 
suddenly  on  the  moral,  it  gives  you  a  shock  of  un 
pleasant  surprise,  a  kind  of  grit,  as  when  one's 
teeth  close  on  a  bit  of  gravel  in  a  dish  of  straw 
berries  and  cream.  He  is  the  most  fluent  of  our 
poets.  Sensation  passing  through  emotion  into 
revery  is  a  prime  quality  of  his  manner.  And  to 
read  him  puts  one  in  the  condition  of  revery,  a 
state  of  mind  in  which  our  thoughts  and  feelings 
float  motionless,  as  one  sees  fish  do  in  a  gentle 
stream,  with  just  enough  vibration  of  their  fins  to 
keep  themselves  from  going  down  with  the  current, 
while  their  bodies  yield  indolently  to  all  its  sooth 
ing  curves.  He  chooses  his  language  for  its  rich 
canorousness  rather  than  for  intensity  of  meaning. 
To  characterize  his  style  in  a  single  word,  I  should 
call  it  costly.  None  but  the  daintiest  and  nicest 
phrases  will  serve  him,  and  he  allures  us  from  one 
to  the  other  with  such  cunning  baits  of  alliteration, 
and  such  sweet  lapses  of  verse,  that  never  any  word 

1  Faery  Queen,  II.  c.  viii.  1,  2. 


SPENSER  335 

seems  more  eminent  than  the  rest,  nor  detains  the 
feeling  to  eddy  around  it,  but  you  must  go  on  to 
the  end  before  you  have  time  to  stop  and  muse 
over  the  wealth  that  has  been  lavished  on  you. 
But  he  has  characterized  and  exemplified  his  own 
style  better  than  any  description  could  do  :  — 

"  For  round  about  the  walls  yclothed  were 

With  goodly  arras  of  great  majesty, 

Woven  with  gold  and  silk  so  close  and  near 

That  the  rich  metal  lurked  privily 

As  f aining  to  be  hid  from  envious  eye ; 

Yet  here  and  there  and  everywhere,  unwares 

It  showed  itself  and  shone  unwillingly 

Like  to  a  discolored  snake  whose  hidden  snares 
Through  the  green  grass  his  long  bright-burnished  back 
declares."  1 

And  of  the  lulling  quality  of  his  verse  take  this  as 
a  sample :  — 

"  And,  more  to  lull  him  in  his  slumber  soft, 
A  trickling  stream  from  high  rock  tumbling  down 
And  ever  drizzling  rain  upon  the  loft, 
Mixt  with  the  murmuring  wind  much  like  the  soun 
Of  swarming  bees  did  cast  him  in  a  swoon. 
No  other  noise,  nor  peoples'  troublous  cries, 
As  still  are  wont  to  annoy  the  walled  town, 
Might  there  be  heard :   but  careless  quiet  lies 

Wrapt  in  eternal  silence  far  from  enemies."2 

In  the  world  into  which  Spenser  carries  us  there 
is  neither  time  nor  space,  or  rather  it  is  outside  of 
and  independent  of  them  both,  and  so  is  purely 
ideal,  or,  more  truly,  imaginary ;  yet  it  is  full  of 
form,  color,  and  all  earthly  luxury,  and  so  far,  if 
not  real,  yet  apprehensible  by  the  senses.  There 
are  no  men  and  women  in  it,  yet  it  throngs  with 

1  Faery  Queen,  III.  o.  xi.  28.  2  Ibid.,  I.  c.  L  41. 


336  SPENSER 

airy  and  immortal  shapes  that  have  the  likeness  of 
men  and  women,  and  hint  at  some  kind  of  fore 
gone  reality.  Now  this  place,  somewhere  between 
mind  and  matter,  between  soul  and  sense,  between 
the  actual  and  the  possible,  is  precisely  the  region 
which  Spenser  assigns  (if  I  have  rightly  divined 
him)  to  the  poetic  susceptibility  of  impression,  — 

"  To  reign  in  the  air  from  the  earth  to  highest  sky." 

Underneath  every  one  of  the  senses  lies  the  soul 
and  spirit  of  it,  dormant  till  they  are  magnetized 
by  some  powerful  emotion.  Then  whatever  is  im 
perishable  in  us  recognizes  for  an  instant  and 
claims  kindred  with  something  outside  and  distinct 
from  it,  yet  in  some  inconceivable  way  a  part  of  it, 
that  flashes  back  on  it  an  ideal  beauty  which  im 
poverishes  all  other  companionship.  This  exalta 
tion  with  which  love  sometimes  subtilizes  the  nerves 
of  coarsest  men  so  that  they  feel  and  see,  not  the 
thing  as  it  seems  to  others,  but  the  beauty  of  it, 
the  joy  of  it,  the  soul  of  eternal  youth  that  is  in 
it,  would  appear  to  have  been  the  normal  condition 
of  Spenser.  While  the  senses  of  most  men  live  in 
the  cellar,  his  "  were  laid  in  a  large  upper  chamber 
which  opened  toward  the  sunrising." 

' '  His  birth  was  of  the  -womb  of  morning  dew, 
And  his  conception  of  the  joyous  prime." 

The  very  greatest  poets  (and  is  there,  after  all, 
more  than  one  of  them  ?)  have  a  way,  I  admit,  of 
getting  within  our  inmost  consciousness  and  in 
a  manner  betraying  us  to  ourselves.  There  is  in 
Spenser  a  remoteness  very  different  from  this,  but 


SPENSER  337 

it  is  also  a  seclusion,  and  quite  as  agreeable,  per 
haps  quite  as  wholesome  in  certain  moods  when  we 
are  glad  to  get  away  from  ourselves  and  those  im 
portunate  trifles  which  we  gravely  call  the  realities 
of  life.  In  the  warm  Mediterranean  of  his  mind 
everything 

"  Suffers  a  sea-change 
Into  something  rich  and  strange." 

He  lifts  everything,  not  beyond  recognition,  but  to 
an  ideal  distance  where  no  mortal,  I  had  almost 
said  human,  fleck  is  visible.  Instead  of  the  ordi 
nary  bridal  gifts,  he  hallows  his  wife  with  an  Epi- 
thalamion  fit  for  a  conscious  goddess,  and  the 
"  savage  soil  " 1  of  Ireland  becomes  a  turf  of  Ar- 
cady  under  her  feet,  where  the  merchants'  daugh 
ters  of  the  town  are  no  more  at  home  than  the 
angels  and  the  fair  shapes  of  pagan  mythology 
whom  they  meet  there.  He  seems  to  have  had  a 
common-sense  side  to  him,  and  could  look  at  things 
(if  we  may  judge  by  his  tract  on  Irish  affairs)  in 
a  practical  and  even  hard  way;  but  the  moment 
he  turned  toward  poetry  he  fulfilled  the  condition 
which  his  teacher  Plato  imposes  on  poets,  and  had 
not  a  particle  of  prosaic  understanding  left.  His 
fancy,  habitually  moving  about  in  worlds  not  real 
ized,  unrealizes  everything  at  a  touch.  The  critics 
blame  him  because  in  his  Prothalamion  the  sub- 

1  This  phrase  occurs  in  the  sonnet  addressed  to  the  Earl  of  Or- 
mond  and  in  that  to  Lord  Grey  de  Wilton  in  the  series  prefixed  to 
the  Faery  Queen.  These  sonnets  are  of  a  much  stronger  build 
than  the  Amoretti,  and  some  of  them  (especially  that  to  Sir  John 
Norris)  recall  the  firm  tread  of  Milton's,  though  differing  in  struc 
ture. 


338  SPENSER 

jects  of  it  enter  on  the  Thames  as  swans  and  leave 
it  at  Temple  Gardens  as  noble  damsels ;  but  to 
those  who  are  grown  familiar  with  his  imaginary 
world  such  a  transformation  seems  as  natural  as  in 
the  old  legend  of  the  Knight  of  the  Swan. 

"  Come  now  ye  damsels,  daughters  of  Delight, 

Help  quickly  her  to  dight : 
But  first  come  ye,  fair  Hours,  which  were  begot 
In  Jove's  sweet  paradise  of  Day  and  Night,  .  .  . 
And  ye  three  handmaids  of  the  Cyprian  Queen, 
The  which  do  still  adorn  her  beauty's  pride, 
Help  to  adorn  my  beautif  ulest  bride. 

Crown  ye  god  Bacchus  with  a  coronal, 

And  Hymen  also  crown  with  wreaths  of  vine, 

And  let  the  Graces  dance  unto  the  rest,  — 

For  they  can  do  it  best. 
The  whiles  the  maidens  do  their  carols  sing, 
To  which  the  woods  shall  answer  and  their  echo  ring." 

The  whole  Epithalamion  is  very  noble,  with  an 
organ-like  roll  and  majesty  of  numbers,  while  it  is 
instinct  with  the  same  joyousness  which  must  have 
been  the  familiar  mood  of  Spenser.  It  is  no  su 
perficial  and  tiresome  merriment,  but  a  profound 
delight  in  the  beauty  of  the  universe  and  in  that 
delicately  surfaced  nature  of  his  which  was  its  mir 
ror  and  counterpart.  Sadness  was  alien  to  him, 
and  at  funerals  he  was,  to  be  sure,  a  decorous 
mourner,  as  could  not  fail  with  so  sympathetic  a 
temperament ;  but  his  condolences  are  graduated 
to  the  unimpassioned  scale  of  social  requirement. 
Even  for  Sir  Philip  Sidney  his  sighs  are  regulated 
by  the  official  standard.  It  was  in  an  unreal  world 
that  his  affections  found  their  true  object  and  vent, 
and  it  is  in  an  elegy  of  a  lady  whom  he  had  never 


SPENSER  339 

known  that  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  a  husband 
whom  he  has  evaporated  into  a  shepherd  the  two 
most  naturally  pathetic  verses  he  ever  penned :  — 

"  I  hate  the  day  because  it  lendeth  light 
To  see  all  things,  but  not  my  love  to  see."  1 

In  the  Epithalamion  there  is  an  epithet  which  has 
been  much  admired  for  its  felicitous  tenderness :  — 

"  Behold,  whiles  she  before  the  altar  stands, 
Hearing  the  holy  priest  that  to  her  speakes 
And  blesseth  her  with  his  two  happy  hands. " 

But  the  purely  impersonal  passion  of  the  artist 
had  already  guided  him  to  this  lucky  phrase.  It 
is  addressed  by  Holiness  —  a  dame  surely  as  far 
abstracted  from  the  enthusiasms  of  love  as  we  can 
readily  conceive  of  —  to  Una,  who,  like  the  vision 
ary  Helen  of  Dr.  Faustus,  has  every  charm  of 
womanhood  except  that  of  being  alive,  as  Juliet 
and  Beatrice  are. 

' '  0  happy  earth, 
Whereon  thy  innocent  feet  do  ever  tread !  "  2 

Can  we  conceive  of  Una,  the  fall  of  whose  foot 
would  be  as  soft  as  that  of  a  rose-leaf  upon  its 
mates  already  fallen,  —  can  we  conceive  of  her 
treading  anything  so  sordid  ?  No  ;  it  is  only  on 
some  unsubstantial  floor  of  dream  that  she  walks 
securely,  herself  a  dream.  And  it  is  only  when 
Spenser  has  escaped  thither,  only  when  this  gla 
mour  of  fancy  has  rarefied  his  wife  till  she  is  grown 
almost  as  purely  a  creature  of  the  imagination  as 
the  other  ideal  images  with  which  he  converses, 

1  Daphnaida,  407,  408. 

2  Faery  Queen,  I.  c.  x.  9. 


340  SPENSER 

that  his  feeling  becomes  as  nearly  passionate  —  as 
nearly  human,  I  was  on  the  point  of  saying  —  as 
with  him  is  possible.  I  am  so  far  from  blaming 
this  idealizing  property  of  his  mind,  that  I  find  it 
admirable  in  him.  It  is  his  quality,  not  his  defect. 
Without  some  touch  of  it  life  would  be  unendur 
able  prose.  If  I  have  called  the  world  to  which  he 
transports  us  a  world  of  unreality,  I  have  wronged 
him.  It  is  only  a  world  of  unrealism.  It  is  from 
pots  and  pans  and  stocks  and  futile  gossip  and 
inch-long  politics  that  he  emancipates  us,  and  makes 
us  free  of  that  to-morrow,  always  coming  and  never 
come,  where  ideas  shall  reign  supreme.1  But  I  am 
keeping  my  readers  from  the  sweetest  idealization 
that  love  ever  wrought :  — 

"  Unto  this  place  whenas  the  elfin  knight 
Approached,  him  seemed  that  the  merry  sound 
Of  a  shrill  pipe,  he  playing  heard  on  height, 
And  many  feet  fast  thumping  the  hollow  ground, 
That  through  the  woods  their  echo  did  rebound ; 
He  nigher  drew  to  wit  what  it  mote  be. 
There  he  a  troop  of  ladies  dancing  found 
Full  merrily  and  making  gladf  ul  glee ; 
And  in  the  midst  a  shepherd  piping  he  did  see. 

"  He  durst  not  enter  into  the  open  green 
For  dread  of  them  unwares  to  be  descried, 
For  breaking  of  their  dance,  if  he  were  seen ; 
But  in  the  covert  of  the  wood  did  bide 
Beholding  all,  yet  of  them  unespied ; 
There  he  did  see  that  pleased  so  much  his  sight 

1  Strictly  taken,  perhaps  his  world  is  not  much  more  imaginary 
than  that  of  other  epic  poets,  Homer  (in  the  Iliad)  included.  He 
who  is  familiar  with  mediaeval  epics  will  be  extremely  cautious  in 
drawing  inferences  as  to  contemporary  manners  from  Homer.  He 
evidently  archaizes  like  the  rest. 


SPENSER  341 

That  even  he  himself  his  eyes  envied, 
A  hundred  naked  maidens  lily-white, 
All  ranged  in  a  ring  and  dancing  in  delight. 

' '  All  they  without  were  ranged  in  a  ring, 
And  danced  round  ;   but  in  the  midst  of  them 
Three  other  ladies  did  both  dance  and  sing, 
The  while  the  rest  them  round  about  did  hem, 
And  like  a  garland  did  in  compass  stem. 
And  in  the  midst  of  these  same  three  was  placed 
Another  damsel,  as  a  precious  gem 
Amidst  a  ring  most  richly  well  enchased, 
That  with  her  goodly  presence  all  the  rest  much  graced. 

'  Look  how  the  crown  which  Ariadne  wove 
Upon  her  ivory  forehead  that  same  day, 
That  Theseus  her  unto  his  bridal  bore, 
(When  the  bold  Centaurs  made  that  bloody  fray, 
With  the  fierce  Lapithes,  that  did  them  dismay) 
Being  now  placed  in  the  firmament, 
Through  the  bright  heaven  doth  her  beams  display, 
And  is  .unto  the  stars  an  ornament, 
Which  round  about  her  move  in  order  excellent ; 

"  Such  was  the  beauty  of  this  goodly  band, 
Whose  sundry  parts  were  here  too  long  to  tell, 
But  she  that  in  the  midst  of  them  did  stand, 
Seemed  all  the  rest  in  beauty  to  excel, 
Crowned  with  a  rosy  garland  that  right  well 
Did  her  beseem.     And,  ever  as  the  crew 
About  her  danced,  sweet  flowers  that  far  did  smell, 
And  fragrant  odors  they  upon  her  threw ; 

But  most  of  all  those  three  did  her  with  gifts  endue. 

' '  Those  were  the  graces,  Daughters  of  Delight, 
Handmaids  of  Venus,  which  are  wont  to  haunt 
Upon  this  hill  and  dance  there,  day  and  night ; 
Those  three  to  men  all  gifts  of  grace  do  grant 
And  all  that  Venus  in  herself  doth  vaunt 
Is  borrowed  of  them  ;  but  that  fair  one 
That  in  the  midst  was  placed  paravant, 


342  SPENSER 

Was  she  to  whom  that  shepherd  piped  alone, 
That  made  him  pipe  so  merrily,  as  never  none. 

"She  was,  to  weet,  that  jolly  shepherd's  lass 
Which  piped  there  unto  that  merry  rout ; 
That  jolly  shepherd  that  there  piped  was 
Poor  Colin  Clout ;   (who  knows  not  Colin  Clout  ?) 
He  piped  apace  while  they  him  danced  about ; 
Pipe,  jolly  shepherd,  pipe  thou  now  apace, 
Unto  thy  love  that  made  thee  low  to  lout ; 
Thy  love  is  present  there  with  thee  in  place, 
Thy  love  is  there  advanced  to  be  another  Grace. ' ' 1 

Is  there  any  passage  in  any  poet  that  so  ripples 
and  sparkles  with  simple  delight  as  this  ?  It  is  a 
sky  of  Italian  April  full  of  sunshine  and  the  hid 
den  ecstasy  of  larks.  And  we  like  it  all  the  more 
that  it  reminds  us  of  that  passage  in  his  friend 
Sidney's  Arcadia,  where  the  shepherd-boy  pipes 
"as  if  he  would  never  be  old."  If  we  compare  it 
with  the  mystical  scene  in  Dante,2  of  which  it  is  a 
reminiscence,  it  will  seem  almost  like  a  bit  of  real 
life  ;  but  taken  by  itself  it  floats  as  unconcerned 
in  our  cares  and  sorrows  and  vulgarities  as  a  sunset 
cloud.  The  sound  of  that  pastoral  pipe  seems  to 
come  from  as  far  away  as  Thessaly  when  Apollo 
was  keeping  sheep  there.  Sorrow,  the  great  ideal- 
izer,  had  had  the  portrait  of  Beatrice  on  her  easel 
for  years,  and  every  touch  of  her  pencil  transfig 
ured  the  woman  more  and  more  into  the  glorified 
saint.  But  Elizabeth  Nagle  was  a  solid  thing  of 
flesh  and  blood,  who  would  sit  down  at  meat  with 
the  poet  on  the  very  day  when  he  had  thus  beati- 

1  Faery  Queen,    VI.  c.  x.  10-16. 

2  Purgatorio,  XXIX.,  XXX. 


SPENSER  343 

fied  her.  As  Dante  was  drawn  upward  from  heaven 
to  heaven  by  the  eyes  of  Beatrice,  so  was  Spenser 
lifted  away  from  the  actual  by  those  of  that  ideal 
Beauty  whereof  his  mind  had  conceived  the  linea 
ments  in  its  solitary  musings  over  Plato,  but  of 
whose  haunting  presence  the  delicacy  of  his  senses 
had  already  premonished  him.  The  intrusion  of 
the  real  world  upon  this  supersensual  mood  of  his 
wrought  an  instant  disenchantment :  — 

' '  Much  wondered  Calidore  at  this  strange  sight 
Whose  like  before  his  eye  had  never  seen, 
And,  standing  long  astonished  in  sprite 
And  rapt  with  pleasance,  wist  not  what  to  ween,- 
Whether  it  were  the  train  of  Beauty's  Queen, 
Or  Nymphs,  or  Fairies,  or  enchanted  show 
With  which  his  eyes  might  have  deluded  been, 
Therefore  resolving  what  it  was  to  know, 

Out  of  the  woods  he  rose  and  toward  them  did  go. 

"  But  sboii  as  he  appeared  to  their  view 
They  vanished  all  away  out  of  his  sight 
And  clean  were  gone,  which  way  he  never  knew, 
All  save  the  shepherd,  who,  for  fell  despite 
Of  that  displeasure,  broke  his  bagpipe  quite." 

Ben  Jonson  said  that  "  he  had  consumed  a 
whole  night  looking  to  his  great  toe,  about  which 
he  had  seen  Tartars  and  Turks,  Romans  and  Car 
thaginians,  fight  in  his  imagination "  ;  and  Cole 
ridge  has  told  us  how  his  "eyes  made  pictures 
when  they  were  shut."  This  is  not  uncommon,  but 
I  fancy  that  Spenser  was  more  habitually  possessed 
by  his  imagination  than  is  usual  even  with  poets. 
His  visions  must  have  accompanied  him  "  in  glory 
and  in  joy"  along  the  common  thoroughfares  of 
life  and  seemed  to  him,  it  may  be  suspected,  more 


344  SPENSER 

real  than  the  men  and  women  he  met  there.  His 
"  most  fine  spirit  of  sense  "  would  have  tended  to 
keep  him  in  this  exalted  mood.  I  must  give  an 
example  of  the  sensuousness  of  which  I  have 
spoken :  — 

' '  And  in  the  midst  of  all  a  fountain  stood 
Of  richest  substance  that  on  earth  might  be, 
So  pure  and  shiny  that  the  crystal  flood 
Through  every  channel  running  one  might  see  ; 
Most  goodly  it  with  curious  imagery 
Was  overwrought,  and  shapes  of  naked  boys, 
Of  which  some  seemed  with  lively  jollity 
To  fly  about,  playing  their  wanton  toys, 
Whilst  others  did  themselves  embay  in  liquid  joys. 

"  And  over  all,  of  purest  gold  was  spread 

A  trail  of  ivy  in  his  native  hue ; 

For  the  rich  metal  was  so  colored 

That  he  who  did  not  well  avised  it  view 

Would  surely  deem  it  to  be  ivy  true  ; 

Low  his  lascivious  arms  adown  did  creep 

That  themselves  dipping  in  the  silver  dew 

Their  fleecy  flowers  they  tenderly  did  steep, 
Which  drops  of  crystal  seemed  for  wantonness  to  weep. 

' '  Infinite  streams  continually  did  well 
Out  of  this  fountain,  sweet  and  fair  to  see, 
The  which  into  an  ample  laver  fell, 
And  shortly  grew  to  so  great  quantity 
That  like  a  little  lake  it  seemed  to  be 
Whose  depth  exceeded  not  three  cubits'  height, 
That  through  the  waves  one  might  the  bottom  see 
All  paved  beneath  with  jasper  shining  bright, 
That  seemed  the  fountain  in  that  sea  did  sail  upright. 

"  And  all  the  margent  round  about  was  set 
With  shady  laurel-trees,  thence  to  defend 
The  sunny  beams  which  on  the  billows  bet, 
And  those  which  therein  bathed  mote  offend. 


SPENSER  345 

As  Guyon  happened  by  the  same  to  wend 
Two  naked  Damsels  he  therein  espied, 
Which  therein  bathing  seemed  to  contend 
And  wrestle  wantonly,  ne  cared  to  hide 
Their  dainty  parts  from  view  of  any  which  them  eyed 

"  Sometimes  the  one  would  lift  the  other  quite 
Above  the  waters,  and  then  down  again 
Her  plunge,  as  overmastered  by  might, 
Where  both  awhile  would  covered  remain, 
And  each  the  other  from  to  rise  restrain ; 
The  whiles  their  snowy  limbs,  as  through  a  veil, 
So  through  the  crystal  waves  appeared  plain : 
Then  suddenly  both  would  themselves  unhele, 
And  the  amorous  sweet  spoils  to  greedy  eyes  reveal. 

"  As  that  fair  star,  the  messenger  of  morn, 
His  dewy  face  out  of  the  sea  doth  rear ; 
Or  as  the  Cyprian  goddess,  newly  born 
Of  the  ocean's  fruitful  froth,  did  first  appear ; 
Such  seemed  they,  and  so  their  yellow  hear 
Crystalline  humor  dropped  down  apace. 
Whom  such  when  Guyon  saw,  he  drew  him  near, 
And  somewhat  gan  relent  his  earnest  pace  ; 
His  stubborn  breast  gan  secret  pleasance  to  embrace- 

"  The  wanton  Maidens  him  espying,  stood 
Gazing  awhile  at  his  unwonted  guise ; 
Then  the  one  herself  low  ducked  in  the  flood, 
Abashed  that  her  a  stranger  did  avise ; 
But  the  other  rather  higher  did  arise, 
And  her  two  lily  paps  aloft  displayed, 
And  all  that  might  his  melting  heart  entice 
To  her  delights,  she  unto  him  bewrayed ; 
The  rest,  hid  underneath,  him  more  desirous  made. 

"  With  that  the  other  likewise  up  arose, 
And  her  fair  locks,  which  formerly  were  bonnd 
Up  in  one  knot,  she  low  adown  did  loose, 
Which  flowing  long  and  thick  her  clothed  around 
And  the  ivory  in  golden  mantle  gowned : 


346  SPENSER 

So  that  fair  spectacle  from  him  was  reft, 
Yet  that  which  reft  it  no  less  fair  was  found ; 
So  hid  in  locks  and  waves  from  lookers'  theft, 
Naught  but  her  lovely  face  she  for  his  looking  left. 

"Withal  she  laughed,  and  she  blushed  withal, 
That  blushing  to  her  laughter  gave  more  grace, 
And  laughter  to  her  blushing,  as  did  fall. 

Eftsoones  they  heard  a  most  melodious  sound, 
Of  all  that  mote  delight  a  dainty  ear, 
Such  as  at  once  might  not  on  living  ground, 
Save  in  this  paradise,  be  heard  elsewhere  : 
Right  hard  it  was  for  wight  which  did  it  hear 
To  read  what  manner  music  that  mote  be  ; 
For  all  that  pleasing  is  to  living  ear 
Was  there  consorted  in  one  harmony  ; 
Birds,  voices,  instruments,  winds,  waters,  all  agree* 

"  The  joyous  birds,  shrouded  in  cheerful  shade, 
Their  notes  unto  the  voice  attempered  sweet ; 
The  angelical  soft  trembling  voices  made 
To  the  instruments  divine  respondence  mete ; 
The  silver-sounding  instruments  did  meet 
With  the  base  murmur  of  the  water's  fall ; 
The  water's  fall  with  difference  discreet, 
Now  soft,  now  loud,  unto  the  wind  did  call ; 

The  gentle  warbling  wind  low  answered  to  all." 

Spenser,  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Harvey,  had 
said,  "  Why,  a  God's  name,  may  not  we,  as  else  the 
Greeks,  have  the  kingdom  of  our  own  language  ?  " 
This  is  in  the  tone  of  Bellay,  as  is  also  a  great  deal 
of  what  is  said  in  the  epistle  prefixed  to  the  "  Shep 
herd's  Calendar."  He  would  have  been  wiser  had 
he  followed  more  closely  Bellay's  advice  about  the 
introduction  of  novel  words:  "Fear  not,  then,  to 
innovate  somewhat,  particularly  in  a  long  poem, 
with  modesty,  however,  with  analogy,  and  judg- 


SPENSER  847 

ment  of  ear ;  and  trouble  not  thyself  as  to  who 
may  think  it  good  or  bad,  hoping  that  posterity 
will  approve  it,  —  she  who  gives  faith  to  doubtful, 
light  to  obscure,  novelty  to  antique,  usage  to  unac 
customed,  and  sweetness  to  harsh  and  rude  things." 
Spenser's  innovations  were  by  no  means  always 
happy,  as  not  always  according  with  the  genius  of 
the  language,  and  they  have  therefore  not  pre 
vailed.  He  forms  English  words  out  of  French  or 
Italian  ones,  sometimes,  I  think,  on  a  misapprehen 
sion  of  their  true  meaning ;  nay,  he  sometimes 
makes  new  ones  by  unlawfully  grafting  a  scion  of 
Romance  on  a  Teutonic  root.  His  theory,  caught 
from  Bellay,  of  rescuing  good  archaisms  from  un 
warranted  oblivion,  was  excellent ;  not  so  his  prac 
tice  of  being  archaic  for  the  mere  sake  of  escaping 
from  the  common  and  familiar.  A  permissible 
archaism  is  a  word  or  phrase  that  has  been  sup 
planted  by  something  less  apt,  but  has  not  become 
unintelligible ;  and  Spenser's  often  needed  a  glos 
sary,  even  in  his  own  day.1  But  he  never  endangers 
his  finest  passages  by  any  experiments  of  this  kind. 
There  his  language  is  living,  if  ever  any,  and  of 
one  substance  with  the  splendor  of  his  fancy.  Like 
all  masters  of  speech,  he  is  fond  of  toying  with  and 
teasing  it  a  little ;  and  it  may  readily  be  granted 
that  he  sometimes  "hunted  the  letter,"  as  it  was 
called,  out  of  all  cry.  But  even  where  his  allitera- 

1  I  find  a  goodly  number  of  Yankeeisms  in  him,  such  as  idee 
(not  as  a  rhyme) ;  but  the  oddest  is  his  twice  spelling  dew  deow, 
which  is  just  as  one  would  spell  it  who  wished  to  phonetize  its 
sound  in  rural  New  England. 


848  SPENSER 

tion  is  tempted  to  an  excess,  its  prolonged  echoes 
caress  the  ear  like  the  fading  and  gathering  rever 
berations  of  an  Alpine  horn,  and  one  can  find  in 
his  heart  to  forgive  even  such  a  debauch  of  initial 
assonances  as 

"  Eftsoones  her  shallow  ship  away  did  slide, 
More  swift  than  swallow  shears  the  liquid  sky." 

Generally,  he  scatters  them  at  adroit  intervals,  re 
minding  us  of  the  arrangement  of  voices  in  an  an 
cient  catch,  where  one  voice  takes  up  the  phrase 
another  has  dropped,  and  thus  seems  to  give  the 
web  of  harmony  a  firmer  and  more  continuous  tex 
ture. 

Other  poets  have  held  their  mirrors  up  to  nature, 
mirrors  that  differ  very  widely  in  the  truth  and 
beauty  of  the  images  they  reflect;  but  Spenser's  is 
a  magic  glass  in  which  we  see  few  shadows  cast 
back  from  actual  life,  but  visionary  shapes  conjured 
up  by  the  wizard's  art  from  some  confusedly  re 
membered  past  or  some  impossible  future ;  it  is 
like  one  of  those  still  pools  of  mediaeval  legend 
which  covers  some  sunken  city  of  the  antique 
world ;  a  reservoir  in  which  all  our  dreams  seem  to 
have  been  gathered.  As  we  float  upon  it,  we  see 
that  it  pictures  faithfully  enough  the  summer-clouds 
that  drift  over  it,  the  trees  that  grow  about  its 
margin,  but  in  the  midst  of  these  shadowy  echoes 
of  actuality  we  catch  faint  tones  of  bells  that  seem 
blown  to  us  from  beyond  the  horizon  of  time,  and 
looking  down  into  the  clear  depths,  catch  glimpses 
of  towers  and  far-shining  knights  and  peerless 
dames  that  waver  and  are  gone.  Is  it  a  world  that 


SPENSER  349 

ever  was,  or  shall  be,  or  can  be,  or  but  a  delusion  ? 
Spenser's  world,  real  to  him,  is  real  enough  for  us 
to  take  a  holiday  in,  and  we  may  well  be  content 
with  it  when  the  earth  we  dwell  on  is  so  often  too 
real  to  allow  of  such  vacations.  It  is  the  same  kind 
of  world  that  Petrarca's  Laura  has  walked  in  for 
five  centuries  with  all  ears  listening  for  the  music 
of  her  footfall. 

The  land  of  Spenser  is  the  land  of  Dream,  but 
it  is  also  the  land  of  Rest.  To  read  him  is  like 
dreaming  awake,  without  even  the  trouble  of  doing 
it  yourself,  but  letting  it  be  done  for  you  by  the 
finest  dreamer  that  ever  lived,  who  knows  how  to 
color  his  dreams  like  life  and  make  them  move  be 
fore  you  in  music.  They  seem  singing  to  you  as 
the  sirens  to  Guyon,  and  we  linger  like  him  :  — 

"  O,  thou  fair  son  of  gentle  Faery 
That  art  in  mighty  arms  most  magnified 
Above  all  knights  that  ever  battle  tried, 
O,  turn  thy  rudder  hitherward  awhile, 
Here  may  thy  storm-beat  vessel  safely  ride, 
This  is  the  port  of  rest  from  troublous  toil, 
The  world's  sweet  inn  from  pain  and  wearisome  turmoil.1 

"  With  that  the  rolling  sea,  resounding  swift 
In  his  big  bass,  them  fitly  answered, 

1  This  song  recalls  that  in  Dante's  Purgatorio  (XIX.  19-24),  in 
which  the  Italian  tongue  puts  forth  all  its  siren  allurements. 
Browne's  beautiful  verses  ("  Turn,  hither  turn  your  winged 
pines")  were  suggested  by  these  of  Spenser.  It  might  almost 
seem  as  if  Spenser  had  here,  in  his  usual  way,  expanded  the  sweet 
old  verses :  — 

"  Merry  sungen  the  monks  binnen  Ely 
When  Knut  king  rew  thereby  ; 
'  Roweth  knightes  near  the  lond, 
That  I  may  hear  these  monkes  song.'  " 


350  SPENSER 

And  on  the  rock  the  waves,  breaking  aloft, 
A  solemn  mean  unto  them  measured, 
The  whiles  sweet  Zephyros  loud  whisteled 
His  treble,  a  strange  kind  of  harmony 
Which  Guyon's  senses  softly  tickeled 
That  he  the  boatman  bade  row  easily 
And  let  him  hear  some  part  of  their  rare  melody." 

Despite  Spenser's  instinctive  tendency  to  idealize, 
and  his  habit  of  distilling  out  of  the  actual  an 
ethereal  essence  in  which  very  little  of  the  possible 
seems  left,  yet  his  mind,  as  is  generally  true  of 
great  poets,  was  founded  on  a  solid  basis  of  good- 
sense.  I  do  not  know  where  to  look  for  a  more  co 
gent  and  at  the  same  time  picturesque  confutation 
of  Socialism  than  in  the  Second  Canto  of  the  Fifth 
Book.  If  I  apprehend  rightly  his  words  and 
images,  there  is  not  only  subtle  but  profound  think 
ing  here.  The  French  Revolution  is  prefigured  in 
the  well-meaning  but  too  theoretic  giant,  and  Rous 
seau's  fallacies  exposed  two  centuries  in  advance. 
Spenser  was  a  conscious  Englishman  to  his  inmost 
fibre,  and  did  not  lack  the  sound  judgment  in  poli 
tics  which  belongs  to  his  race.  He  was  the  more 
English  for  living  in  Ireland,  and  there  is  some 
thing  that  moves  us  deeply  in  the  exile's  passionate 
cry:  — 

"  Dear  Country !     O  how  dearly  dear 
Ought  thy  remembrance  and  perpetual  band 
Be  to  thy  foster-child  that  from  thy  hand 
Did  common  breath  and  nouriture  receive ! 
How  brutish  is  it  not  to  understand 
How  much  to  her  we  owe  that  all  us  gave, 
That  gave  unto  us  all  whatever  good  we  have !  " 

His  race  shows  itself  also  where  he  tells  us  that 


SPENSER  B51 

"  chiefly  skill  to  ride  seems  a  science 
Proper  to  gentle  blood," 

which  reminds  one  of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury's 
saying  that  the  finest  sight  God  looked  down  on 
was  a  fine  man  on  a  fine  horse. 

Wordsworth,  in  the  supplement  to  his  preface, 
tells  us  that  the  "  Faery  Queen  "  "  faded  before  " 
Sylvester's  translation  of  Du  Bartas.  But  Words 
worth  held  a  brief  for  himself  in  this  case,  and  is 
no  exception  to  the  proverb  about  men  who  are 
their  own  attorneys.  His  statement  is  wholly  un 
founded.  Both  poems,  no  doubt,  so  far  as  popular 
ity  is  concerned,  yielded  to  the  graver  interests  of 
the  Civil  War.  But  there  is  an  appreciation  much 
weightier  than  any  that  is  implied  in  mere  popu 
larity,  and  the  vitality  of  a  poem  is  to  be  measured 
by  the  kind  as  well  as  the  amount  of  influence  it 
exerts.  Spenser  has  coached  more  poets  and  more 
eminent  ones  than  any  other  writer  of  English 
verse.  I  need  say  nothing  of  Milton,  nor  of  pro 
fessed  disciples  like  Browne,  the  two  Fletchers, 
and  More.  Cowley  tells  us  that  he  became  "  irre 
coverably  a  poet  "  by  reading  the  "  Faery  Queen  " 
when  a  boy.  Dryden,  whose  case  is  particularly 
in  point  because  he  confesses  having  been  seduced 
by  Du  Bartas,  tells  us  that  Spenser  had  been  his 
master  in  English.  He  regrets,  indeed,  comically 
enough,  that  Spenser  could  not  have  read  the  rules 
of  Bossu,  but  adds  that  "  no  man  was  ever  born 
with  a  greater  genius  or  more  knowledge  to  support 
it."  Pope  says,  "  There  is  something  in  Spenser 
that  pleases  one  as  strongly  in  one's  old  age  as  it 


852  SPENSER 

did  in  one's  youth.  I  read  the  Faery  Queen  when 
I  was  about  twelve  with  a  vast  deal  of  delight ;  and 
I  think  it  gave  me  as  much  when  I  read  it  over 
about  a  year  or  two  ago."  Thomson  wrote  the 
most  delightful  of  his  poems  in  the  measure  of 
Spenser ;  Collins,  Gray,  and  Akenside  show  traces 
of  him  ;  and  in  our  own  day  his  influence  reappears 
in  Wordsworth,  Byron,  Shelley,  and  Keats.  Lan- 
dor  is,  I  believe,  the  only  poet  who  ever  found  him 
tedious.  Spenser's  mere  manner  has  not  had  so 
many  imitators  as  Milton's,  but  no  other  of  our 
poets  has  given  an  impulse,  and  in  the  right  direc 
tion  also,  to  so  many  and  so  diverse  minds  ;  above 
all,  no  other  has  given  to  so  many  young  souls  a 
consciousness  of  their  wings  and  a  delight  in  the 
use  of  them.  He  is  a  standing  protest  against  the 
tyranny  of  Commonplace,  and  sows  the  seeds  of  a 
noble  discontent  with  prosaic  views  of  life  and  the 
dull  uses  to  which  it  may  be  put. 

Three  of  Spenser's  own  verses  best  characterize 
the  feeling  his  poetry  gives  us :  — 

"Among  wide  waves  set  like  a  little  nest," 
"  Wrapt  in  eternal  silence  far  from  enemies," 
"  The  world's  sweet  inn  from  pain  and  wearisome  turmoil." 

We  are  wont  to  apologize  for  the  grossness  of  our 
favorite  authors  sometimes  by  saying  that  their  age 
was  to  blame  and  not  they ;  and  the  excuse  is  a 
good  one,  for  often  it  is  the  frank  word  that  shocks 
us  while  we  tolerate  the  thing.  Spenser  needs  no 
such  extenuations.  No  man  can  read  the  "  Faery 


SPENSER  353 

Queen "  and  be  anything  but  the  better  for  it. 
Through  that  rude  age,  when  Maids  of  Honor 
drank  beer  for  breakfast  and  Hamlet  could  say  a 
gross  thing  to  Ophelia,  he  passes  serenely  ab 
stracted  and  high,  the  Don  Quixote  of  poets. 
Whoever  can  endure  unmixed  delight,  whoever 
can  tolerate  music  and  painting  and  poetry  all  in 
one,  whoever  wishes  to  be  rid  of  thought  and  to 
let  the  busy  anvils  of  the  brain  be  silent  for  a  time, 
let  him  read  in  the  "  Faery  Queen."  There  is  the 
land  of  pure  heart's  ease,  where  no  ache  or  sorrow 
of  spirit  can  enter. 


WORDSWORTH 

1875 

A  GENERATION  has  now  passed  away  since 
Wordsworth  was  laid  with  the  family  in  the  church 
yard  at  Grasmere.1  Perhaps  it  is  hardly  yet  time 
to  take  a  perfectly  impartial  measure  of  his  value 
as  a  poet.  To  do  this  is  especially  hard  for  those 
who  are  old  enough  to  remember  the  last  shot 
which  the  foe  was  sullenly  firing  in  that  long  war 
of  critics  which  began  when  he  published  his  man 
ifesto  as  Pretender,  and  which  came  to  a  pause 
rather  than  to  an  end  when  they  flung  up  their 
caps  with  the  rest  at  his  final  coronation.  Some 
thing  of  the  intensity  of  the  odium  theologicum  (if 
indeed  the  cestheticum  be  not  in  these  days  the 
more  bitter  of  the  two)  entered  into  the  conflict. 
The  Wordsworthians  were  a  sect,  who,  if  they  had 
the  enthusiasm,  had  also  not  a  little  of  the  exclu- 
siveness  and  partiality  to  which  sects  are  liable. 
The  verses  of  the  master  had  for  them  the  virtue  of 
religious  canticles  stimulant  of  zeal  and  not  amen- 

1  "I  pay  many  little  visits  to  the  family  in  the  churchyard  at 
Grasmere,"  writes  James  Dixon  (an  old  servant  of  Wordsworth) 
to  Crabb  Robinson,  with  a  simple,  one  might  almost  say  canine 
pathos,  thirteen  years  after  his  master's  death.  Wordsworth 
was  always  considerate  and  kind  with  his  servants,  Robinson  tells 
us. 


WORDSWORTH  355 

able  to  the  ordinary  tests  of  cold-blooded  criticism. 
Like  the  hymns  of  the  Huguenots  and  Covenant 
ers,  they  were  songs  of  battle  no  less  than  of  wor 
ship,  and  the  combined  ardors  of  conviction  and 
conflict  lent  them  a  fire  that  was  not  naturally  their 
own.  As  we  read  them  now,  that  virtue  of  the 
moment  is  gone  out  of  them,  and  whatever  of  Dr. 
Wattsiness  there  is  gives  us  a  slight  shock  of  dis 
enchantment.  It  is  something  like  the  difference 
between  the  Marseillaise  sung  by  armed  propa 
gandists  on  the  edge  of  battle,  or  by  Brissotins  in 
the  tumbrel,  and  the  words  of  it  read  coolly  in 
the  closet,  or  recited  with  the  factitious  frenzy  of 
Therese.  It  was  natural  in  the  early  days  of 
Wordsworth's  career  to  dwell  most  fondly  on  those 
profounder  qualities  to  appreciate  which  settled  in 
some  sort  the  measure  of  a  man's  right  to  judge  of 
poetry  at  all.  But  now  we  must  admit  the  short 
comings,  the  failures,  the  defects,  as  no  less  essen 
tial  elements  in  forming  a  sound  judgment  as  to 
whether  the  seer  and  artist  were  so  united  in  him 
as  to  justify  the  claim  first  put  in  by  himself  and 
afterwards  maintained  by  his  sect  to  a  place  beside 
the  few  great  poets  who  exalt  men's  minds,  and 
give  a  right  direction  and  safe  outlet  to  their  pas 
sions  through  the  imagination,  while  insensibly 
helping  them  toward  balance  of  character  and  se 
renity  of  judgment  by  stimulating  their  sense  of 
proportion,  form,  and  the  nice  adjustment  of  means 
to  ends.  In  none  of  our  poets  has  the  constant 
propulsion  of  an  unbending  will,  and  the  concen 
tration  of  exclusive,  if  I  must  not  say  somewhat 


856  WORDSWORTH 

narrow,  sympathies  done  so  much  to  make  the  ori 
ginal  endowment  of  nature  effective,  and  in  none 
accordingly  does  the  biography  throw  so  much  light 
on  the  works,  or  enter  so  largely  into  their  composi 
tion  as  an  element  whether  of  power  or  of  weakness. 
Wordsworth  never  saw,  and  I  think  never  wished 
to  see,  beyond  the  limits  of  his  own  consciousness 
and  experience.  He  early  conceived  himself  to  be, 
and  through  life  was  confirmed  by  circumstances 
in  the  faith  that  he  was,  a  "  dedicated  spirit,"  *  a 
state  of  mind  likely  to  further  an  intense  but  at 
the  same  time  one-sided  development  of  the  intel 
lectual  powers.  The  solitude  in  which  the  greater 
part  of  his  mature  life  was  passed,  while  it  doubt 
less  ministered  to  the  passionate  intensity  of  his 
musings  upon  man  and  nature,  was,  it  may  be  sus 
pected,  harmful  to  him  as  an  artist,  by  depriving 
him  of  any  standard  of  proportion  outside  himself 
by  which  to  test  the  comparative  value  of  his 
thoughts,  and  by  rendering  him  more  and  more 
incapable  of  that  urbanity  of  mind  which  could  be 
gained  only  by  commerce  with  men  more  nearly 
on  his  own  level,  and  which  gives  tone  without 
lessening  individuality.  Wordsworth  never  quite 
saw  the  distinction  between  the  eccentric  and  the 
original.  For  what  we  call  originality  seems  not 

1  In  the  Prelude  he   attributes  this  consecration  to  a  sunrise 
seen  (during  a  college  vacation)  as  he  walked  homeward  from 
some  village  festival  where  he  had  danced  all  night :  — 
"  My  heart  was  full ;  I  made  no  vows,  but  vows 
Were  then  made  for  me ;  bond  unknown  to  me 
Was  given  that  I  should  be,  else  sinning  greatly, 
A  dedicated  Spirit."    (B.  IV.) 


WORDSWORTH  357 

so  much  anything  peculiar,  much  less  anything 
odd,  but  that  quality  in  a  man  which  touches  hu 
man  nature  at  most  points  of  its  circumference, 
which  reinvigorates  the  consciousness  of  our  own 
powers  by  recalling  and  confirming  our  own  un 
valued  sensations  and  perceptions,  gives  classic 
shape  to  our  own  amorphous  imaginings,  and  ade 
quate  utterance  to  our  own  stammering  conceptions 
or  emotions.  The  poet's  office  is  to  be  a  Voice, 
not  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness  to  a  knot  of 
already  magnetized  acolytes,  but  singing  amid  the 
throng  of  men,  and  lifting  their  common  aspira 
tions  and  sympathies  (so  first  clearly  revealed  to 
themselves)  on  the  wings  of  his  song  to  a  purer 
ether  and  a  wider  reach  of  view.  We  cannot,  if 
we  would,  read  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth  as  mere 
poetry ; .  at  every  other  page  we  find  ourselves  en 
tangled  in  a  problem  of  aesthetics.  The  world-old 
question  of  matter  and  form,  of  whether  nectar  is 
of  precisely  the  same  flavor  when  served  to  us  from 
a  Grecian  chalice  or  from  any  jug  of  ruder  pot 
tery,  comes  up  for  decision  anew.  The  Teutonic 
nature  has  always  shown  a  sturdy  preference  of 
the  solid  bone  with  a  marrow  of  nutritious  moral 
to  any  shadow  of  the  same  on  the  flowing  mirror 
of  sense.  Wordsworth  never  lets  us  long  forget 
the  deeply  rooted  stock  from  which  he  sprang,  — 
vien  ben  da  lui. 

William  Wordsworth  was  born  at  Cockermouth 
in  Cumberland,  on  the  7th  of  April,  1770,  the 
second  of  five  children.  His  father  was  John 


858  WORDSWORTH 

Wordsworth,  an  attorney-at-law,  and  agent  of  Sir 
James  Lowther,  afterwards  first  Earl  of  Lonsdale. 
His  mother  was  Anne  Cookson,  the  daughter  of  a 
mercer  in  Penrith.  His  paternal  ancestors  had 
been  settled  iminemorially  at  Penistone  in  York 
shire,  whence  his  grandfather  had  emigrated  to 
Westmoreland.  His  mother,  a  woman  of  piety  and 
wisdom,  died  in  March,  1778,  being  then  in  her 
thirty-second  year.  His  father,  who  never  entirely 
cast  off  the  depression  occasioned  by  her  death, 
survived  her  but  five  years,  dying  in  December, 
1783,  when  William  was  not  quite  fourteen  years 
old. 

The  poet's  early  childhood  was  passed  partly  at 
Cockermouth,  and  partly  with  his  maternal  grand 
father  at  Penrith.  His  first  teacher  appears  to 
have  been  Mrs.  Anne  Birkett,  a  kind  of  Shenstoue's 
Schoolmistress,  who  practised  the  memory  of  her 
pupils,  teaching  them  chiefly  by  rote,  and  not  en 
deavoring  to  cultivate  their  reasoning  faculties,  a 
process  by  which  children  are  apt  to  be  converted 
from  natural  logicians  into  impertinent  sophists. 
Among  his  schoolmates  here  was  Mary  Hutchinson, 
who  afterwards  became  his  wife. 

In  1778  he  was  sent  to  a  school  founded  by  Ed 
win  Sandys,  Archbishop  of  York,1  in  the  year  1585, 
at  Hawkshead  in  Lancashire.  Hawkshead  is  a  small 
market-town  in  the  vale  of  Esthwaite,  about  a  third 
of  a  mile  northwest  of  the  lake.  Here  Wordsworth 

1  Father  of  George  Sandys,  Treasurer  of  the  Virginia  Com 
pany,  translator,  while  in  Virginia,  of  Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  and 
author  of  a  book  of  travels  in  the  East  dear  to  Dr.  Johnson. 


WORDSWORTH  359 

passed  nine  years,  among  a  people  of  simple  habits 
and  scenery  of  a  sweet  and  pastoral  dignity.  His 
earliest  intimacies  were  with  the  mountains,  lakes, 
and  streams  of  his  native  district,  and  the  associa 
tions  with  which  his  mind  was  stored  during  its  most 
impressible  period  were  noble  and  pure.  The  boys 
were  boarded  among  the  dames  of  the  village,  thus 
enjoying  a  freedom  from  scholastic  restraints,  which 
could  be  nothing  but  beneficial  in  a  place  where  the 
temptations  were  only  to  sports  that  hardened  the 
body  while  they  fostered  a  love  of  nature  in  the 
spirit  and  habits  of  observation  in  the  mind.  Words 
worth's  ordinary  amusements  here  were  hunting 
and  fishing,  rowing,  skating,  and  long  walks  around 
the  lake  and  among  the  hills,  with  an  occasional 
scamper  on  horseback.1  His  life  as  a  school-boy 
was  favorable  also  to  his  poetic  development,  in 
being  identified  with  that  of  the  people  among 
whom  he  lived.  Among  men  of  simple  habits,  and 
where  there  are  small  diversities  of  condition,  the 
feelings  and  passions  are  displayed  with  less  re 
straint,  and  the  young  poet  grew  acquainted  with 
that  primal  human  basis  of  character  where  the 
Muse  finds  firm  foothold,  and  to  which  he  ever 
afterward  cleared  his  way  through  all  the  overlying 
drift  of  conventionalism.  The  dalesmen  were  a 
primitive  and  hardy  race  who  kept  alive  the  tradi 
tions  and  often  the  habits  of  a  more  picturesque 
time.  A  common  level  of  interests  and  of  social 
standing  fostered  unconventional  ways  of  thought 
and  speech,  and  friendly  human  sympathies.  Soli- 
1  Prelude,  Book  II. 


860  WORDSWORTH 

tude  induced  reflection,  a  reliance  of  the  mind  on 
its  own  resources,  and  individuality  of  character. 
Where  everybody  knew  everybody,  and  everybody's 
father  had  known  everybody's  father,  the  interest 
of  man  in  man  was  not  likely  to  become  a  matter 
of  cold  hearsay  and  distant  report.  When  death 
knocked  at  any  door  in  the  hamlet,  there  was  an 
echo  from  every  fireside,  and  a  wedding  dropt  its 
white  flowers  at  every  threshold.  There  was  not  a 
grave  in  the  churchyard  but  had  its  story ;  not  a 
crag  or  glen  or  aged  tree  untouched  with  some  ideal 
hue  of  legend.  It  was  here  that  Wordsworth 
learned  that  homely  humanity  which  gives  such 
depth  and  sincerity  to  his  poems.  Travel,  society, 
culture,  nothing  could  obliterate  the  deep  trace  of 
that  early  training  which  enables  him  to  speak  di 
rectly  to  the  primitive  instincts  of  man.  He  was 
apprenticed  early  to  the  difficult  art  of  being  him 
self. 

At  school  he  wrote  some  task-verses  on  subjects 
imposed  by  the  master,  and  also  some  voluntaries 
of  his  own,  equally  undistinguished  by  any  peculiar 
merit.  But  he  seems  to  have  made  up  his  mind  as 
early  as  in  his  fourteenth  year  to  become  a  poet.1 
"It  is  recorded,"  says  his  biographer  vaguely, 
"  that  the  poet's  father  set  him  very  early  to  learn 
portions  of  the  best  English  poets  by  heart,  so  that 
at  an  early  age  he  could  repeat  large  portions  of 
Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  Spenser."  2 

1  "  I  to  the  muses  have  been  bound, 

These  fourteen  years,  by  strong  indentures." 

Idiot  Boy  (1798). 
8  I  think  this  more  than  doubtful,  for  I  find  no  traces  of  the 


WORDSWORTH  361 

The  great  event  of  Wordsworth's  school-days 
was  the  death  of  his  father,  who  left  what  may  be 
called  a  hypothetical  estate,  consisting  chiefly  of 
claims  upon  the  first  Earl  of  Lonsdale,  the  pay 
ment  of  which,  though  their  justice  was  acknow 
ledged,  that  nobleman  contrived  in  some  unex 
plained  way  to  elude  so  long  as  he  lived.  In 
October,  1787,  he  left  school  for  St.  John's  Col 
lege,  Cambridge.  He  was  already,  we  are  told,  a 
fair  Latin  scholar,  and  had  made  some  progress  in 
mathematics.  The  earliest  books  we  hear  of  his 
reading  were  Don  Quixote,  Gil  Bias,  Gulliver's 
Travels,  and  the  Tale  of  a  Tub ;  but  at  school  he 
had  also  become  familiar  with  the  works  of  some 
English  poets,  particularly  Goldsmith  and  Gray,  of 
whose  poems  he  had  learned  many  by  heart.  What 
is  more  to  the  purpose,  he  had  become,  without 
knowing  it,  a  lover  of  Nature  in  all  her  moods,  and 
the  same  mental  necessities  of  a  solitary  life  which 
compel  men  to  an  interest  in  the  transitory  phe 
nomena  of  scenery  had  made  him  also  studious  of 
the  movements  of  his  own  mind,  and  the  mutual 
interaction  and  dependence  of  the  external  and  in 
ternal  universe. 

Doubtless  his  early  orphanage  was  not  without 
its  effect  in  confirming  a  character  naturally  impa 
tient  of  control,  and  his  mind,  left  to  itself,  clothed 
itself  with  an  indigenous  growth,  which  grew  fairly 
and  freely,  unstinted  by  the  shadow  of  exotic  plan- 
influence  of  any  of  these  poets  in  his  earlier  writings.  Goldsmith 
was  evidently  his  model  in  the  Descriptive  Sketches  and  the  Even 
ing  Walk.  I  speak  of  them  as  originally  printed. 


362  WORDSWORTH 

tations.  It  has  become  a  truism,  that  remarkable 
persons  have  remarkable  mothers ;  but  perhaps 
this  is  chiefly  true  of  such  as  have  made  them 
selves  distinguished  by  their  industry,  and  by  the 
assiduous  cultivation  of  faculties  in  themselves  of 
only  an  average  quality.  It  is  rather  to  be  noted 
how  little  is  known  of  the  parentage  of  men  of  the 
first  magnitude,  how  often  they  seem  in  some  sort 
foundlings,  and  how  early  an  apparently  adverse 
destiny  begins  the  culture  of  those  who  are  to  en 
counter  and  master  great  intellectual  or  spiritual 
experiences. 

Of  his  disposition  as  a  child  little  is  known,  but 
that  little  is  characteristic.  He  himself  tells  us 
that  he  was  "  stiff,  moody,  and  of  violent  temper." 
His  mother  said  of  him  that  he  was  the  only  one 
of  her  children  about  whom  she  felt  any  anxiety,  — 
for  she  was  sure  that  he  would  be  remarkable  for 
good  or  evil.  Once,  in  resentment  at  some  fancied 
injury,  he  resolved  to  kill  himself,  but  his  heart 
failed  him.  I  suspect  that  few  boys  of  passionate 
temperament  have  escaped  these  momentary  sug 
gestions  of  despairing  helplessness.  "  On  another 
occasion,"  he  says,  "while  I  was  at  my  grand 
father's  house  at  Penrith,  along  with  my  eldest 
brother  Richard,  we  were  whipping  tops  together 
in  the  long  drawing-room,  on  which  the  carpet  was 
only  laid  down  on  particular  occasions.  The  walls 
were  hung  round  with  family  pictures,  and  I  said 
to  my  brother,  '  Dare  you  strike  your  whip  through 
that  old  lady's  petticoat?'  He  replied,  'No,  I 
won't.'  '  Then,'  said  I,  '  here  goes,'  and  I  struck 


WORDSWORTH  363 

my  lash  through  her  hooped  petticoat,  for  which, 
no  doubt,  though  I  have  forgotten  it,  I  was  prop 
erly  punished.  But,  possibly  from  some  want  of 
judgment  in  punishments  inflicted,  I  had  become 
perverse  and  obstinate  in  defying  chastisement, 
and  rather  proud  of  it  than  otherwise."  This  last 
anecdote  is  as  happily  typical  as  a  bit  of  Greek 
mythology  which  always  prefigured  the  lives  of 
heroes  in  the  stories  of  their  childhood.  Just  so 
do  we  find  him  afterward  striking  his  defiant  lash 
through  the  hooped  petticoat  of  the  artificial  style 
of  poetry,  and  proudly  unsubdued  by  the  punish 
ment  of  the  Reviewers. 

Of  his  college  life  the  chief  record  is  to  be  found 
in  "The  Prelude."  He  did  not  distinguish  himself 
as  a  scholar,  and  if  his  life  had  any  irjcidents,  they 
were  of  that  interior  kind  which  rarely  appear  in 
biography,  though  they  may  be  of  controlling  influ 
ence  upon  the  life.  He  speaks  of  reading  Chaucer, 
Spenser,  and  Milton  while  at  Cambridge,1  but  no 
reflection  from  them  is  visible  in  his  earliest  pub 
lished  poems.  The  greater  part  of  his  vacations 
was  spent  in  his  native  Lake-country,  where  his  only 
sister,  Dorothy,  was  the  companion  of  his  rambles. 
She  was  a  woman  of  large  natural  endowments, 

1  Prelude,  Book  III.  He  studied  Italian  also  at  Cambridge ; 
his  teacher,  whose  name  was  Isola,  had  formerly  taught  the  poet 
Gray.  It  may  be  pretty  certainly  inferred,  however,  that  his  first 
systematic  study  of  English  poetry,  was  due  to  the  copy  of  Ander 
son's  British  Poets,  left  with  him  by  his  sailor  brother  John  on 
setting  out  for  his  last  voyage  in  1805.  It  was  the  daughter  of 
this  Isola,  Emma,  who  was  afterwards  adopted  by  Charles  and 
Mary  Lamb. 


864  WORDSWORTH 

chiefly  of  the  receptive  kind,  and  had  much  to  do 
with  the  formation  and  tendency  of  the  poet's 
mind.  It  was  she  who  called  forth  the  shyer  sen 
sibilities  of  his  nature,  and  taught  an  originally 
harsh  and  austere  imagination  to  surround  itself 
with  fancy  and  feeling,  as  the  rock  fringes  itself 
with  a  sun-spray  of  ferns.  She  was  his  first  Pub 
lic,  and  belonged  to  that  class  of  prophetically 
appreciative  temperaments  whose  apparent  office 
it  is  to  cheer  the  early  solitude  of  original  minds 
with  messages  from  the  future.  Through  the 
greater  part  of  his  life  she  continued  to  be  a  kind 
of  poetical  conscience  to  him. 

Wordsworth's  last  college  vacation  was  spent 
in  a  foot  journey  upon  the  Continent  (1790).  In 
January,  1791,  he  took  his  degree  of  B.  A.,  and 
left  Cambridge.  During  the  summer  of  this  year 
he  visited  Wales,  and,  after  declining  to  enter 
upon  holy  orders  under  the  plea  that  he  was  not  of 
age  for  ordination,  went  over  to  France  in  Novem 
ber,  and  remained  during  the  winter  at  Orleans. 
Here  he  became  intimate  with  the  republican  Gen 
eral  Beaupuis,  with  whose  hopes  and  aspirations  he 
ardently  sympathized.  In  the  spring  of  1792  he 
was  at  Blois,  and  returned  thence  to  Orleans,  which 
he  finally  quitted  in  October  for  Paris.  He  re 
mained  here  as  long  as  he  could  with  safety,  and  at 
the  close  of  the  year  went  back  to  England,  thus, 
perhaps,  escaping  the  fate  which  soon  after  over 
took  his  friends  the  Brissotins. 

As  hitherto  the  life  of  Wordsworth  may  be 
called  a  fortunate  one,  not  less  so  in  the  training 


WORDSWORTH  365 

and  expansion  of  his  faculties  was  this  period  of 
his  stay  in  France.  Born  and  reared  in  a  country 
where  the  homely  and  familiar  nestles  confidingly 
amid  the  most  savage  and  sublime  forms  of  na 
ture,  he  had  experienced  whatever  impulses  the 
creative  faculty  can  receive  from  mountain  and 
cloud  and  the  voices  of  winds  and  waters,  but  he 
had  known  man  only  as  an  actor  in  fireside  his 
tories  and  tragedies,  for  which  the  hamlet  supplied 
an  ample  stage.  In  France  he  first  felt  the  au 
thentic  beat  of  a  nation's  heart ;  he  was  a  spectator 
at  one  of  those  dramas  where  the  terrible  footfall 
of  the  Eumenides  is  heard  nearer  and  nearer  in 
the  pauses  of  the  action ;  and  he  saw  man  such  as 
he  can  only  be  when  he  is  vibrated  by  the  orgasm 
of  a  national  emotion.  He  sympathized  with  the 
hopes  of  France  and  of  mankind  deeply,  as  was 
fitting  in  a  young  man  and  a  poet ;  and  if  his  faith 
in  the  gregarious  advancement  of  men  was  after 
ward  shaken,  he  only  held  the  more  firmly  by  his 
belief  in  the  individual,  and  his  reverence  for  the 
human  as  something  quite  apart  from  the  popular 
and  above  it.  Wordsworth  has  been  unwisely 
blamed,  as  if  he  had  been  recreant  to  the  liberal 
instincts  of  his  youth.  But  it  was  inevitable  that 
a  genius  so  regulated  and  metrical  as  his,  a  mind 
which  always  compensated  itself  for  its  artistic 
radicalism  by  an  involuntary  leaning  toward  exter 
nal  respectability,  should  recoil  from  whatever  was 
convulsionary  and  destructive  in  politics,  and  above 
all  in  religion.  He  reads  the  poems  of  Words 
worth  without  understanding,  who  does  not  find  in 


366  WORDSWORTH 

them  the  noblest  incentives  to  faith  in  man  and 
the  grandeur  of  his  destiny,  founded  always  upon 
that  personal  dignity  and  virtue,  the  capacity  for 
whose  attainment  alone  makes  universal  liberty 
possible  and  assures  its  permanence.  He  was  to 
make  men  better  by  opening  to  them  the  sources 
of  an  inalterable  well-being;  to  make  them  free, 
in  a  sense  higher  than  political,  by  showing  them 
that  these  sources  are  within  them,  and  that  no 
contrivance  of  man  can  permanently  emancipate 
narrow  natures  and  depraved  minds.  His  politics 
were  always  those  of  a  poet,  circling  in  the  larger 
orbit  of  causes  and  principles,  careless  of  the  tran 
sitory  oscillation  of  events. 

The  change  in  his  point  of  view  (if  change  there 
was)  certainly  was  complete  soon  after  his  return 
from  France,  and  was  perhaps  due  in  part  to  the 
influence  of  Burke. 

"  While  he  [Burke]  forewarns,  denounces,  launches  forth, 
Against  all  systems  built  on  abstract  rights, 
Keen  ridicule  ;  the  majesty  proclaims 
Of  institutes  and  laws  hallowed  by  time  ; 
Declares  the  vital  power  of  social  ties 
Endeared  by  custom  ;  and  with  high  disdain, 
Exploding  upstart  theory,  insists 
Upon  the  allegiance  to  which  men  are  born. 
.   .  .  Could  a  youth,  and  one 

In  ancient  story  versed,  whose  breast  hath  heaved 
Under  the  weight  of  classic  eloquence, 
Sit,  see,  and  hear,  unthankful,  uninspired  ?  " 1 

1  Prelude,  Book  VII.  Written  before  1805,  and  referring  to  a 
still  earlier  date.  "  Wordsworth  went  in  powder,  and  with  cocked 
hat  under  his  arm,  to  the  Marchioness  of  Stafford's  rout." 
(Southey  to  Miss  Barker,  May,  1806.) 


WORDSWORTH  367 

He  had  seen  the  French  for  a  dozen  years 
eagerly  busy  in  tearing  up  whatever  had  roots  in 
the  past,  replacing  the  venerable  trunks  of  tra 
dition  and  orderly  growth  with  liberty-poles,  then 
striving  vainly  to  piece  together  the  fibres  they  had 
broken,  and  to  reproduce  artificially  that  sense  of 
permanence  and  continuity  which  is  the  main  safe 
guard  of  vigorous  self-consciousness  in  a  nation. 
He  became  a  Tory  through  intellectual  conviction, 
retaining,  I  suspect,  to  the  last,  a  certain  radicalism 
of  temperament  and  instinct.  As  in  Carlyle,  so  in 
him  something  of  the  peasant  survived  to  the  last. 
Hay  don  tells  us  that  in  1809  Sir  George  Beaumont 
said  to  him  and  Wilkie,  "  Wordsworth  may  per 
haps  walk  in ;  if  he  do,  I  caution  you  both  against 
his  terrific  democratic  notions  "  ;  and  it  must  have 
been  many  years  later  that  Wordsworth  himself 
told  Crabb  Robinson,  "  I  have  no  respect  whatever 
for  Whigs,  but  I  have  a  great  deal  of  the  Chartist 
in  me."  In  1802,  during  his  tour  in  Scotland,  he 
travelled  on  Sundays  as  on  the  other  days  of  the 
week.1  He  afterwards  became  a  theoretical  church 
goer.  "  Wordsworth  defended  earnestly  the  Church 
establishment.  He  even  said  he  would  shed  his 
blood  for  it.  Nor  was  he  disconcerted  by  a  laugh 
raised  against  him  on  account  of  his  having  con 
fessed  that  he  knew  not  when  he  had  been  in  a 
church  in  his  own  country.  *  All  our  ministers  are 
so  vile,'  said  he.  The  mischief  of  allowing  the 

1  This  was  probably  one  reason  for  the  long  suppression  of  Miss 
Wordsworth's  journal,  which  she  had  evidently  prepared  for  pub 
lication  as  early  as  1805. 


368  WORDSWORTH 

clergy  to  depend  on  the  caprice  of  the  multitude 
he  thought  more  than  outweighed  all  the  evils  of 
an  establishment."  l 

In  December,  1792,  Wordsworth  had  returned 
to  England,  and  in  the  following  year  published 
"  Descriptive  Sketches  "  and  the  "  Evening  Walk." 
He  did  this,  as  he  says  in  one  of  his  letters,  to  show 
that,  although  he  had  gained  no  honors  at  the  Uni 
versity,  he  could  do  something.  They  met  with  no 
great  success,  and  he  afterward  corrected  them  so 
much  as  to  destroy  all  their  interest  as  juvenile  pro 
ductions,  without  communicating  to  them  any  of 
the  merits  of  maturity.  In  commenting,  sixty  years 
afterward,  on  a  couplet  in  one  of  these  poems,  — 

"  And,  fronting  the  bright  west,  the  oak  entwines 
Its  darkening  boughs  and  leaves  in  stronger  lines,"  — 

he  says :  "  This  is  feebly  and  imperfectly  expressed, 
but  I  recollect  distinctly  the  very  spot  where  this 
first  struck  me.  .  .  .  The  moment  was  important 
in  my  poetical  history  ;  for  I  date  from  it  my  con 
sciousness  of  the  infinite  variety  of  natural  appear 
ances  which  had  been  unnoticed  by  the  poets  of 
any  age  or  country,  so  far  as  I  was  acquainted  with 
them,  and  I  made  a  resolution  to  supply  in  some 
degree  the  deficiency." 

It  is  plain  that  Wordsworth's  memory  was  play 
ing  him  a  trick  here,  misled  by  that  instinct  (it 
may  almost  be  called)  of  consistency  which  leads 
men  first  to  desire  that  their  lives  should  have  been 
without  break  or  seam,  and  then  to  believe  that 
they  have  been  such.  The  more  distant  ranges  of 
1  Crabb  Robinson,  i.  250,  Am.  ed. 


WORDSWORTH  369 

perspective  are  apt  to  run  together  in  retrospection. 
How  far  could  Wordsworth  at  fourteen  have  been 
acquainted  with  the  poets  of  all  ages  and  coun 
tries,  —  he  who  to  his  dying  day  could  not  endure 
to  read  Goethe  and  knew  nothing  of  Calderon  ?  It 
seems  to  me  rather  that  the  earliest  influence  trace 
able  in  him  is  that  of  Goldsmith,  and  later  of  Cow- 
per,  and  it  is,  perhaps,  some  slight  indication  of  its 
having  already  begun  that  his  first  volume  of  "  De 
scriptive  Sketches  "  (1793)  was  put  forth  by  John 
son,  who  was  Cowper's  publisher.  By  and  by  the 
powerful  impress  of  Burns  is  seen  both  in  the 
topics  of  his  verse  and  the  form  of  his  expression. 
But  whatever  the  ultimate  effect  of  these  poets 
upon  his  style,  certain  it  is  that  his  juvenile  poems 
were  clothed  in  the  conventional  habit  of  the  eigh 
teenth  century.  "  The  first  verses  from  which  he 
remembered  to  have  received  great  pleasure  were 
Miss  Carter's  '  Poem  on  Spring,'  a  poem  in  the  six- 
line  stanza  which  he  was  particularly  fond  of  and 
had  composed  much  in,  —  for  example,  '  Ruth.'  r 
This  is  noteworthy,  for  Wordsworth's  lyric  range, 
especially  so  far  as  tune  is  concerned,  was  always 
narrow.  His  sense  of  melody  was  painfully  dull, 
and  some  of  his  lighter  effusions,  as  he  would  have 
called  them,  are  almost  ludicrously  wanting  in  grace 
of  movement.  We  cannot  expect  in  a  modern  poet 
the  thrush-like  improvisation,  the  bewitchingly  im 
pulsive  cadences,  that  charm  us  in  our  Elizabethan 
drama  and  whose  last  warble  died  with  Herrick ; 
but  Shelley,  Tennyson,  and  Browning  have  shown 
that  the  simple  pathos  of  their  music  was  not  irre* 


370  WORDSWORTH 

coverable,  even  if  the  artless  poignancy  of  their 
phrase  be  gone  beyond  recall.  We  feel  this  lack 
in  Wordsworth  all  the  more  keenly  if  we  compare 
such  verses  as 

"  Like  an  army  defeated 
The  snow  hath  retreated 
And  now  doth  fare  ill 
On  the  top  of  the  bare  hill," 

with  Goethe's  exquisite  Ueber  alien  Gipfeln  ist 
Huh,  in  which  the  lines  (as  if  shaken  down  by  a 
momentary  breeze  of  emotion)  drop  lingeringly 
one  after  another  like  blossoms  upon  turf. 

The  "  Evening  Walk  "  and  "  Descriptive 
Sketches "  show  plainly  the  prevailing  influence 
of  Goldsmith,  both  in  the  turn  of  thought  and  the 
mechanism  of  the  verse.  They  lack  altogether  the 
temperance  of  tone  and  judgment  in  selection  which 
have  made  the  "  Traveller "  and  the  "  Deserted 
Village,"  perhaps,  the  most  truly  classical  poems  in 
the  language.  They  bear  here  and  there,  however, 
the  unmistakable  stamp  of  the  maturer  Words 
worth,  not  only  in  a  certain  blunt  realism,  but  in  the 
intensity  and  truth  of  picturesque  epithet.  Of 
this  realism,  from  which  Wordsworth  never  wholly 
freed  himself,  the  following  verses  may  suffice  as  a 
specimen.  After  describing  the  fate  of  a  chamois- 
hunter  killed  by  falling  from  a  crag,  his  fancy  goes 
back  to  the  bereaved  wife  and  son :  — 

"  Haply  that  child  in  fearful  doubt  may  gaze, 
Passing  his  father's  bones  in  future  days, 
Start  at  the  reliques  of  that  very  thigh 
On  which  so  oft  he  prattled  when  a  boy." 


WORDSWORTH  371 

In  these  poems  there  is  plenty  of  that  "  poetic  dic 
tion  "  against  which  Wordsworth  was  to  lead  the 
revolt  nine  years  later. 

"  To  wet  the  peak's  impracticable  sides 
He  opens  of  his  feet  the  sanguine  tides, 
Weak  and  more  weak  the  issuing  current  eyes 
Lapped  by  the  panting  tongue  of  thirsty  skies." 

Both  of  these  passages  have  disappeared  from  the 
revised  edition,  as  well  as  some  curious  outbursts 
of  that  motiveless  despair  which  Byron  made  fash 
ionable  not  long  after.  Nor  are  there  wanting 
touches  of  fleshliness  which  strike  us  oddly  as  com 
ing  from  Wordsworth.1 

"  Farewell !  those  forms  that  in  thy  noontide  shade 
Rest  near  their  little  plots  of  oaten  glade, 
Those  steadfast  eyes  that  beating  breasts  inspire 
To  throw  the  '  sultry  ray  '  of  young  Desire  ; 
Those  lips  whose  tides  of  fragrance  come  and  go 
Accordant  to  the  cheek's  unquiet  glow  ; 
Those  shadowy  breasts  in  love's  soft  light  arrayed, 
And  rising  by  the  moon  of  passion  swayed." 

The  political  tone  is  also  mildened  in  the  revision, 
as  where  he  changes  "  despot  courts "  into  "  tyr 
anny."  One  of  the  alterations  is  interesting.  In 
the  "  Evening  Walk  "  he  had  originally  written 

' '  And  bids  her  soldier  come  her  wars  to  share 
Asleep  on  Minden's  charnel  hill  afar." 

An  erratum  at  the  end  directs  us  to  correct  the 
second  verse,  thus :  — 

1  Wordsworth's  purity  afterwards  grew  sensitive  almost  to  pru 
dery.  The  late  Mr.  Clough  told  me  that  he  heard  him  at  Dr. 
Arnold's  table  denounce  the  first  line  in  Keats's  Ode  to  a  Grecian 
Urn  as  indecent,  and  Haydon  records  that  when  he  saw  the  group 
of  Cupid  and  Psyche  he  exclaimed,  "The'dev-ils  !  " 


372  WORDSWORTH 

"Asleep  on  Bunker's  charnel  hill  afar."1 

Wordsworth  somewhere  rebukes  the  poets  for  mak 
ing  the  owl  a  bodeful  bird.  He  had  himself  done 
so  in  the  "Evening  Walk,"  and  corrects  his  epi 
thets  to  suit  his  later  judgment,  putting  "  gladsome  " 
for  "  boding,"  and  replacing 

"  The  tremulous  sob  of  the  complaining  owl" 

fcy 

"  The  sportive  outcry  of  the  mocking  owl." 

Indeed,  the  character  of  the  two  poems  is  so  much 
changed  in  the  revision  as  to  make  the  dates  ap 
pended  to  them  a  misleading  anachronism.  But 
there  is  one  truly  Wordsworthian  passage  which 
already  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  that  passion  with 
which  he  was  the  first  to  irradiate  descriptive  po 
etry,  and  which  sets  him  on  a  level  with  Turner. 

"  'T  is  storm  ;  and  hid  in  mist  from  hour  to  hour 
All  day  the  floods  a  deepening  murmur  pour ; 
The  sky  is  veiled  and  every  cheerful  sight ; 
Dark  is  the  region  as  with  coming  night ; 
But  what  a  sudden  burst  of  overpowering  light ! 
Triumphant  on  the  bosom  of  the  storm, 
Glances  the  fire-clad  eagle's  wheeling  form ; 
Eastward,  in  long  prospective  glittering  shine 
The  wood-crowned  cliffs  that  o'er  the  lake  recline ; 
Those  eastern  cliffs  a  hundred  streams  unfold, 
At  once  to  pillars  turned  that  flame  with  gold ; 
Behind  his  sail  the  peasant  tries  to  shun 
The  West  that  burns  like  one  dilated  sun, 
Where  in  a  mighty  crucible  expire 
The  mountains,  glowing  hot  like  coals  of  fire." 

1  The  whole  passage  is  omitted  in  the  revised  edition.  The 
original,  a  quarto  pamphlet,  is  now  very  rare,  but  fortunately 
Charles  Lamb's  copy  of  it  is  now  owned  by  my  friend  Professor 
C.  E.  Norton. 


WORDSWORTH  373 

Wordsworth  has  made  only  one  change  in  these 
verses,  and  that  for  the  worse,  by  substitut 
ing  "glorious"  (which  was  already  implied  in 
"  glances  "  and  "  fireclad  ")  for  "  wheeling."  In 
later  life  he  would  have  found  it  hard  to  forgive 
the  man  who  should  have  made  cliffs  recline  over 
a  lake.  On  the  whole,  what  strikes  us  as  most 
prophetic  in  these  poems  is  their  want  of  continuity, 
and  the  purple  patches  of  true  poetry  on  a  texture 
of  unmistakable  prose  ;  perhaps  we  might  add  the 
incongruous  clothing  of  prose  thoughts  in  the  cere 
monial  robes  of  poesy. 

During  the  same  year  (1793)  he  wrote,  but  did 
not  publish,  a  political  tract,  in  which  he  avowed 
himself  opposed  to  monarchy  and  to  the  hereditary 
principle,  and  desirous  of  a  republic,  if  it  could  be 
had  without  a  revolution.  He  probably  continued 
to  be  all  his  life  in  favor  of  that  ideal  republic 
"which  never  was  on  land  or  sea,"  but  fortunately 
he  gave  up  politics  that  he  might  devote  himself  to 
his  own  nobler  calling,  to  which  politics  are  subor 
dinate,  and  for  which  he  found  freedom  enough  in 
England  as  it  was.1  Dr.  Wordsworth  admits  that 

1  Wordsworth  showed  his  habitual  good  sense  in  never  sharing, 
BO  far  as  is  known,  the  communistic  dreams  of  his  friends  Cole 
ridge  and  Southey.  The  latter  of  the  two  had,  to  be  sure,  renounced 
them  shortly  after  his  marriage,  and  before  his  acquaintance 
with  Wordsworth  began.  But  Coleridge  seems  to  have  clung  to 
them  longer.  There  is  a  passage  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Cottle 
(without  date,  but  apparently  written  in  the  spring  of  1798)  which 
would  imply  that  Wordsworth  had  been  accused  of  some  kind  of 
social  heresy.  "  Wordsworth  has  been  caballed  against  so  long 
and  so  loudly  that  he  has  found  it  impossible  to  prevail  on  the 
tenant  of  the  Allf oxden  estate  to  let  him  the  house  after  their  first 


374  WORDSWORTH 

his  uncle's  opinions  were  democratical  so  late  as 
1802.  I  suspect  that  they  remained  so  in  an  eso 
teric  way  to  the  end  of  his  days.  He  had  himself 
suffered  by  the  arbitrary  selfishness  of  a  great  land 
holder,  and  he  was  born  and  bred  in  a  part  of  Eng 
land  where  there  is  a  greater  social  equality  than 
elsewhere.  The  look  and  manner  of  the  Cumber 
land  people  especially  are  such  as  recall  very  viv 
idly  to  a  New  Englander  the  associations  of  fifty 
years  ago,  ere  the  change  from  New  England  to 
New  Ireland  had  begun.  But  meanwhile,  Want, 
which  makes  no  distinctions  of  Monarchist  or  Re 
publican,  was  pressing  upon  him.  The  debt  due  to 
his  father's  estate  had  not  been  paid,  and  Words 
worth  was  one  of  those  rare  idealists  who  esteem  it 
the  first  duty  of  a  friend  of  humanity  to  live  for, 
and  not  on,  his  neighbor.  He  at  first  proposed  es 
tablishing  a  periodical  journal  to  be  called  "  The 
Philanthropist,"  but  luckily  went  no  further  with 
it,  for  the  receipts  from  an  organ  of  opinion  which 
professed  republicanism,  and  at  the  same  time  dis 
countenanced  the  plans  of  all  existing  or  defunct 
republicans,  would  have  been  necessarily  scanty. 
There  being  no  appearance  of  any  demand,  present 
or  prospective,  for  philanthropists,  he  tried  to  get 

agreement  is  expired.' '  Perhaps,  after  all,  it  was  Wordsworth's 
insulation  of  character  and  habitual  want  of  sympathy  with  any 
thing  but  the  moods  of  his  own  mind  that  rendered  him  incapable 
of  this  copartnery  of  enthusiasm.  He  appears  to  have  regarded 
even  his  sister  Dorothy  (whom  he  certainly  loved  as  much  as  it 
was  possible  for  him  to  love  anything  but  his  own  poems)  as  a 
kind  of  tributary  dependency  of  his  genius,  much  as  a  mountain 
might  look  down  on  one  of  its  ancillary  spurs. 


WORDSWORTH  375 

employment  as  correspondent  of  a  newspaper. 
Here  also  it  was  impossible  that  lie  should  succeed ; 
he  was  too  great  to  be  merged  in  the  editorial  We, 
and  had  too  well  defined  a  private  opinion  on  all 
subjects  to  be  able  to  express  that  average  of  public 
opinion  which  constitutes  able  editorials.  But  so  it 
is  that  to  the  prophet  in  the  wilderness  the  birds 
of  ill  omen  are  already  on  the  wing  with  food  from 
heaven ;  and  while  Wordsworth's  relatives  were 
getting  impatient  at  what  they  considered  his  waste 
of  time,  while  one  thought  he  had  gifts  enough  to 
make  a  good  parson,  and  another  lamented  the  rare 
attorney  that  was  lost  in  him,1  the  prescient  muse 
guided  the  hand  of  Eaisley  Calvert  while  he  wrote 

1  Speaking  to  one  of  his  neighbors  in  1845  he  said,  "  that,  after 
he  had  finished  his  college  course,  he  was  in  great  doubt  as  to 
what  his  future  employment  should  be.  He  did  not  feel  himself 
good  enough  for  the  Church ;  he  felt  that  his  mind  was  not  prop 
erly  disciplined  for  that  holy  office,  and  that  the  struggle  between 
his  conscience  and  his  impulses  would  have  made  life  a  torture. 
He  also  shrank  from  the  Law,  although  Southey  often  told  him 
that  he  was  well  fitted  for  the  higher  parts  of  the  profession.  He 
had  studied  military  history  with  great  interest,  and  the  strategy 
of  war  ;  and  he  always  fancied  that  he  had  talents  for  command ; 
and  he  at  one  time  thought  of  a  military  life,  but  then  he  was 
without  connections,  and  he  felt,  if  he  were  ordered  to  the  West 
Indies,  his  talents  would  not  save  him  from  the  yellow-fever,  and 
he  gave  that  up."  (Memoirs,  ii.  466.)  It  is  curious  to  fancy 
Wordsworth  a  soldier.  Certain  points  of  likeness  between  him 
and  Wellington  have  often  struck  me.  They  resemble  each 
other  in  practical  good  sense,  fidelity  to  duty,  courage,  and  also  in 
a  kind  of  precise  uprightness  which  made  their  personal  character 
somewhat  uninteresting.  But  what  was  decorum  in  Wellington 
was  piety  in  Wordsworth,  and  the  entire  absence  of  imagination 
(the  great  point  of  dissimilarity)  perhaps  helped  as  much  as 
anything  to  make  Wellington  a  great  commander. 


876  WORDSWORTH 

the  poet's  name  in  his  will  for  a  legacy  of  £900. 
By  the  death  of  Calvert,  in  1795,  this  timely  help 
came  to  Wordsworth  at  the  turning-point  of  his 
life,  and  made  it  honest  for  him  to  write  poems 
that  will  never  die,  instead  of  theatrical  critiques 
as  ephemeral  as  play-bills,  or  leaders  that  led  only 
to  oblivion. 

In  the  autumn  of  1795  Wordsworth  and  his  sis 
ter  took  up  their  abode  at  Racedown  Lodge,  near 
Crewkerne,  in  Dorsetshire.  Here  nearly  two  years 
were  passed,  chiefly  in  the  study  of  poetry,  and 
Wordsworth  to  some  extent  recovered  from  the 
fierce  disappointment  of  his  political  dreams,  and 
regained  that  equable  tenor  of  mind  which  alone 
is  consistent  with  a  healthy  productiveness.  Here 
Coleridge,  who  had  contrived  to  see  something 
more  in  the  "  Descriptive  Sketches  "  than  the  pub 
lic  had  discovered  there,  first  made  his  acquaint 
ance.  The  sympathy  and  appreciation  of  an  in 
tellect  like  Coleridge's  supplied  him  with  that 
external  motive  to  activity  which  is  the  chief  use 
of  popularity,  and  justified  to  him  his  opinion  of 
his  own  powers.  It  was  now  that  the  tragedy  of 
"  The  Borderers  "  was  for  the  most  part  written, 
and  that  plan  of  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  suggested 
which  gave  Wordsworth  a  clue  to  lead  him  out  of 
the  metaphysical  labyrinth  in  which  he  was  entan 
gled.  It  was  agreed  between  the  two  young  friends, 
that  Wordsworth  was  to  be  a  philosophic  poet, 
and,  by  a  good  fortune  uncommon  to  such  con 
spiracies,  Nature  had  already  consented  to  the  ar 
rangement.  In  July,  1797,  the  two  Wordsworths 


WORDSWORTH  377 

removed  to  Allfoxden  in  Somersetshire,  that  they 
might  be  near  Coleridge,  who  in  the  mean  while 
had  married  and  settled  himself  at  Nether-Stowey. 
In  November  "  The  Borderers  "  was  finished,  and 
Wordsworth  went  up  to  London  with  his  sister  to 
offer  it  for  the.  stage.  The  good  Genius  of  the 
poet  again  interposing,  the  play  was  decisively  re 
jected,  and  Wordsworth  went  back  to  Allfoxden, 
himself  the  hero  of  that  first  tragi-comedy  so  com 
mon  to  young  authors. 

The  play  has  fine  passages,  but  is  as  unreal 
as  "  Jane  Eyre."  It  shares  with  many  of  Words 
worth's  narrative  poems  the  defect  of  being  written 
to  illustrate  an  abstract  moral  theory,  so  that  the 
overbearing  thesis  is  continually  thrusting  the  poe 
try  to  the  wall.  Applied  to  the  drama,  such  pre 
destination  makes  all  the  personages  puppets  and 
disenables  them  for  being  characters.  Wordsworth 
seems  to  have  felt  this  when  he  published  "  The 
Borderers  "  in  1842,  and  says  in  a  note  that  it  was 
"  at  first  written  .  .  .  without  any  view  to  its  ex 
hibition  upon  the  stage."  But  he  was  mistaken. 
The  contemporaneous  letters  of  Coleridge  to  Cottle 
show  that  he  was  long  in  giving  up  the  hope  of 
getting  it  accepted  by  some  theatrical  manager. 

He  now  applied  himself  to  the  preparation  of 
the  first  volume  of  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  for  the 
press,  and  it  was  published  toward  the  close  of 
1798.  The  book,  which  contained  also  "  The  An 
cient  Mariner  "  of  Coleridge,  attracted  little  notice, 
and  that  in  great  part  contemptuous.  When  Mr. 
Cottle,  the  publisher,  shortly  after  sold  his  copy- 


378  WORDSWORTH 

rights  to  Mr.  Longman,  that  of  the  "  Lyrical  Bal 
lads  "  was  reckoned  at  zero,  and  it  was  at  last 
given  up  to  the  authors.  A  few  persons  were  not 
wanting,  however,  who  discovered  the  dawn-streaks 
of  a  new  day  in  that  light  which  the  critical  fire- 
brigade  thought  to  extinguish  with  a  few  contemp 
tuous  spurts  of  cold  water.1 

Lord  Byron  describes  himself  as  waking  one 
morning  and  finding  himself  famous,  and  it  is  quite 
an  ordinary  fact  that  a  blaze  may  be  made  with  a 
little  saltpetre  that  will  be  stared  at  by  thousands 
who  would  have  thought  the  sunrise  tedious.  If  we 
may  believe  his  biographer,  Wordsworth  might  have 
said  that  he  awoke  and  found  himself  in-famous, 
for  the  publication  of  the  "  Lyrical  Ballads  "  un 
doubtedly  raised  him  to  the  distinction  of  being 
the  least  popular  poet  in  England.  Parnassus  has 
two  peaks ;  the  one  where  improvising  poets  clus 
ter  ;  the  other  where  the  singer  of  deep  secrets  sits 
alone,  —  a  peak  veiled  sometimes  from  the  whole 
morning  of  a  generation  by  earth-born  mists  and 

1  Cottle  says,  "  The  sale  was  so  slow  and  the  severity  of  most  of 
the  reviews  so  great  that  its  progress  to  oblivion  seemed  to  be 
certain."  But  the  notices  in  the  Monthly  and  Critical  reviews 
(then  the  most  influential)  were  fair,  and  indeed  favorable,  espe 
cially  to  Wordsworth's  share  in  the  volume.  The  Monthly  says, 
"  So  much  genius  and  originality  are  discovered  in  this  publication 
that  we  wish  to  see  another  from  the  same  hand."  The  Critical, 
after  saying  that  "in  the  whole  range  of  English  poetry  we 
scarcely  recollect  anything  superior  to  a  passage  in  Lines  written 
near  Tintern  Abbey"  sums  up  thus  :  "  Yet  every  piece  discovers 
genius ;  and  ill  as  the  author  has  frequently  employed  his  talents, 
they  certainly  rank  him  with  the  best  of  living  poets."  Such 
treatment  surely  cannot  be  called  discouraging. 


WORDSWORTH  379 

smoke  of  kitchen  fires,  only  to  glow  the  more  con 
sciously  at  sunset,  and  after  nightfall  to  crown  it 
self  with  imperishable  stars.  Wordsworth  had 
that  self-trust  which  in  the  man  of  genius  is  sub 
lime,  and  in  the  man  of  talent  insufferable.  It 
mattered  not  to  him  though  all  the  reviewers  had 
been  in  a  chorus  of  laughter  or  a  conspiracy  of 
silence  behind  him.  He  went  quietly  over  to  Ger 
many  to  write  more  Lyrical  Ballads,  and  to  begin 
a  poem  on  the  growth  of  his  own  mind,  at  a  time 
when  there  were  only  two  men  in  the  world  (him 
self  and  Coleridge)  who  were  aware  that  he  had 
one  in  anywise  differing  from  those,  mechanically 
uniform,  which  are  stuck  drearily,  side  by  side,  in 
the  great  pin-paper  of  society. 

In  Germany  Wordsworth  dined  in  company  with 
Klopstock,  and  after  dinner  they  had  a  conver 
sation,  of  which  Wordsworth  took  notes.  The  re 
spectable  old  poet,  who  was  passing  the  evening 
of  his  days  by  the  chimney-corner,  Darby  and  Joan 
like,  with  his  respectable  Muse,  seems  to  have  been 
rather  bewildered  by  the  apparition  of  a  living 
genius.  The  record  is  of  value  now  chiefly  for  the 
insight  it  gives  us  into  Wordsworth's  mind.  Among 
other  things  he  said,  "  that  it  was  the  province  of 
a  great  poet  to  raise  people  up  to  his  own  level, 
not  to  descend  to  theirs,"  —  memorable  words,  the 
more  memorable  that  a  literary  life  of  sixty  years 
was  in  keeping  with  them. 

It  would  be  instructive  to  know  what  were 
Wordsworth's  studies  during  his  winter  in  Goslar. 
Pe  Quincey's  statement  is  mere  conjecture.  It 


380  WORDSWORTH 

may  be  guessed  fairly  enough  that  he  would  seek 
an  entrance  to  the  German  language  by  the  easy 
path  of  the  ballad,  a  course  likely  to  confirm  him 
in  his  theories  as  to  the  language  of  poetry.  The 
Spinozism  with  which  he  has  been  not  unjustly 
charged  was  certainly  not  due  to  any  German  in 
fluence,  for  it  appears  unmistakably  in  the  "  Lines 
composed  at  Tintern  Abbey  "  in  July,  1798.  It 
is  more  likely  to  have  been  derived  from  his  talks 
with  Coleridge  in  1797.1  When  Emerson  visited 
him  in  1833,  he  spoke  with  loathing  of  "  Wilhelm 
Meister,"  a  part  of  which  he  had  read  in  Carlyle's 
translation  apparently.  There  was  some  affecta 
tion  in  this,  it  should  seem,  for  he  had  read  Smol 
lett.  On  the  whole,  it  may  be  fairly  concluded  that 
the  help  of  Germany  in  the  development  of  his 
genius  may  be  reckoned  as  very  small,  though 
there  is  certainly  a  marked  resemblance  both  in 
form  and  sentiment  between  some  of  his  earlier 
lyrics  and  those  of  Goethe.  His  poem  of  the 
"  Thorn,"  though  vastly  more  imaginative,  may 
have  been  suggested  by  Burger's  Pfarrers  Tochter 
von  Taubenhain.  The  little  grave  drei  Spannen 
lang,  in  its  conscientious  measurement,  certainly 
recalls  a  famous  couplet  in  the  English  poem. 

After  spending  the  winter  at  Goslar,  Words 
worth  and  his  sister  returned  to  England  in  the 

1  A  very  improbable  story  of  Coleridge's  in  the  Biographia 
Literaria  represents  the  two  friends  as  having  incurred  a  suspicion 
of  treasonable  dealings  with  the  French  enemy  by  their  constant 
references  to  a  certain  "Spy  Nosey."  The  story  at  least  seems 
to  show  how  they  pronounced  the  name,  which  was  exactly  in  ac 
cordance  with  the  usage  of  the  last  generation  in  New  England. 


WORDSWORTH  381 

spring  of  1799,  and  settled  at  Grasmere  in  West- 
moreland.  In  1800,  the  first  edition  of  the  "  Lyri 
cal  Ballads  "  being  exhausted,  it  was  republished 
with  the  addition  of  another  volume,  Mr.  Long 
man  paying  <£100  for  the  copyright  of  two  editions. 
The  book  passed  to  a  second  edition  in  1802,  and 
to  a  third  in  1805.1  Wordsworth  sent  a  copy  of  it, 
with  a  manly  letter,  to  Mr.  Fox,  particularly  rec 
ommending  to  his  attention  the  poems  "  Michael " 
and  "  The  Brothers,"  as  displaying  the  strength 
and  permanence  among  a  simple  and  rural  popula 
tion  of  those  domestic  affections  which  were  cer 
tain  to  decay  gradually  under  the  influence  of 
manufactories  and  poor-houses.  Mr.  Fox  wrote 
a  civil  acknowledgment,  saying  that  his  favorites 
among  the  poems  were  "  Harry  Gill,"* "  We  are 
Seven,"  "The  Mad  Mother,"  and  "The  Idiot," 
but  that  he  was  prepossessed  against  the  use  of 
blank-verse  for  simple  subjects.  Any  political  sig 
nificance  in  the  poems  he  was  apparently  unable  to 
see.  To  this  second  edition  Wordsworth  prefixed 
an  argumentative  Preface,  in  which  he  nailed  to 
the  door  of  the  cathedral  of  English  song  the  criti 
cal  theses  which  he  was  to  maintain  against  all 
comers  in  his  poetry  and  his  life.  It  was  a  new 
thing  for  an  author  to  undertake  to  show  the  good- 

1  Wordsworth  found  (as  other  original  minds  have  since  done) 
a  hearing  in  America  sooner  than  in  England.  James  Humphreys, 
a  Philadelphia  bookseller,  was  encouraged  by  a  sufficient  list  of 
subscribers  to  reprint  the  first  edition  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads. 
The  second  English  edition,  however,  having  been  published  be 
fore  he  had  wholly  completed  his  reprinting,  was  substantially 
followed  in  the  first  American,  which  was  published  in  1802. 


382  WORDSWORTH 

ness  of  his  verses  by  the  logic  and  learning  of  his 
prose  ;  but  Wordsworth  carried  to  the  reform  of 
poetry  all  that  fervor  and  faith  which  had  lost 
their  political  object,  and  it  is  another  proof  of  the 
sincerity  and  greatness  of  his  mind,  and  of  that 
heroic  simplicity  which  is  their  concomitant,  that 
he  could  do  so  calmly  what  was  sure  to  seem  ludi 
crous  to  the  greater  number  of  his  readers.  Fifty 
years  have  since  demonstrated  that  the  true  judg 
ment  of  one  man  outweighs  any  counterpoise  of 
false  judgment,  and  that  the  faith  of  mankind  is 
guided  to  a  man  only  by  a  well-founded  faith  in 
himself.  To  this  Defensio  Wordsworth  afterward 
added  a  supplement,  and  the  two  form  a  treatise 
of  permanent  value  for  philosophic  statement  and 
decorous  English.  Their  only  ill  effect  has  been, 
that  they  have  encouraged  many  otherwise  deserv 
ing  young  men  to  set  a  Sibylline  value  on  their 
verses  in  proportion  as  they  were  unsalable.  The 
strength  of  an  argument  for  self-reliance  drawn 
from  the  example  of  a  great  man  depends  wholly 
on  the  greatness  of  him  who  uses  it ;  such  argu 
ments  being  like  coats  of  mail,  which,  though  they 
serve  the  strong  against  arrow-flights  and  lance- 
thrusts,  may  only  suffocate  the  weak  or  sink  him 
the  sooner  in  the  waters  of  oblivion. 

An  advertisement  prefixed  to  the  "  Lyrical  Bal 
lads,"  as  originally  published  in  one  volume,  warned 
the  reader  that  "  they  were  written  chiefly  with  a 
view  to  ascertain  how  far  the  language  of  conver 
sation  in  the  middle  and  lower  classes  of  society 
is  adapted  to  the  purposes  of  poetic  pleasure." 


WORDSWORTH  383 

In  his  preface  to  the  second  edition,  in  two  vol 
umes,  Wordsworth  already  found  himself  forced  to 
shift  his  ground  a  little  (perhaps  in  deference  to 
the  wider  view  and  finer  sense  of  Coleridge),  and 
now  says  of  the  former  volume  that  "  it  was  pub 
lished  as  an  experiment  which,  I  hoped,  might  be 
of  some  use  to  ascertain  how  far,  by  fitting  to  met 
rical  arrangement,  a  selection  of  the  real  language 
of  men  in  a  state  of  vivid  sensation,  that  sort  of 
pleasure  and  that  quantity  of  pleasure  may  be  im 
parted  which  a  poet  may  rationally  endeavor  to 
impart."  1  Here  is  evidence  of  a  retreat  towards  a 
safer  position,  though  Wordsworth  seems  to  have 
remained  unconvinced  at  heart,  and  for  many  years 
longer  clung  obstinately  to  the  passages  of  bald 
prose  into  which  his  original  theory  had  betrayed 
him.  In  1815  his  opinions  had  undergone  a  still 
further  change,  and  an  assiduous  study  of  the  qual 
ities  of  his  own  mind  and  of  his  own  poetic  method 
(the  two  subjects  in  which  alone  he  was  ever  a 
thorough  scholar)  had  convinced  him  that  poetry 
was  in  no  sense  that  appeal  to  the  understanding 
which  is  implied  by  the  words  "  rationally  endeavor 
to  impart."  In  the  preface  of  that  year  he  says, 
"  The  observations  prefixed  to  that  portion  of  these 
volumes  which  was  published  many  years  ago  under 
the  title  of  '  Lyrical  Ballads '  have  so  little  of  spe 
cial  application  to  the  greater  part  of  the  present 
enlarged  and  diversified  collection,  that  they  could 

1  Some  of  the  weightiest  passages  in  this  Preface,  as  it  is  now 
printed,  were  inserted  without  notice  of  date  in  the  edition  of 
1815. 


384  WORDSWORTH 

not  with  propriety  stand  as  an  introduction  to  it." 
It  is  a  pity  that  he  could  not  have  become  an  ear 
lier  convert  to  Coleridge's  pithy  definition,  that 
"  prose  was  words  in  their  best  order,  and  poetry 
the  best  words  in  the  best  order."  But  idealization 
was  something  that  Wordsworth  was  obliged  to 
learn  painfully.  It  did  not  come  to  him  naturally, 
as  to  Spenser  and  Shelley,  and  to  Coleridge  in  his 
higher  moods.  Moreover,  it  was  in  the  too  fre 
quent  choice  of  subjects  incapable  of  being  ideal 
ized  without  a  manifest  jar  between  theme  and 
treatment  that  Wordsworth's  great  mistake  lay. 
For  example,  in  "  The  Blind  Highland  Boy "  he 
had  originally  the  following  stanzas :  — 

"  Strong  is  the  current,  but  be  mild, 
Ye  waves,  and  spare  the  helpless  child ! 
If  ye  in  anger  fret  or  chafe, 
A  bee-hive  would  be  ship  as  safe 
As  that  in  which  he  sails. 

"  But  say,  what  was  it  ?     Thought  of  fear! 
Well  may  ye  tremble  when  ye  hear ! 
—  A  household  tub  like  one  of  those 
Which  women  use  to  wash  their  clothes, 
This  carried  the  blind  boy." 

In  endeavoring  to  get  rid  of  the  downright  vul 
garity  of  phrase  in  the  last  stanza,  Wordsworth  in 
vents  an  impossible  tortoise-shell,  and  thus  robs  his 
story  of  the  reality  which  alone  gave  it  a  living  in 
terest.  Any  extemporized  raft  would  have  floated 
the  boy  down  to  immortality.  But  Wordsworth 
never  quite  learned  the  distinction  between  Fact, 
which  suffocates  the  Muse,  and  Truth,  which  is  the 
very  breath  of  her  nostrils.  Study  and  self -culture 


WORDSWORTH  385 

did  much  for  him,  but  they  never  quite  satisfied 
him  that  he  was  capable  of  making  a  mistake.  He 
yielded  silently  to  friendly  remonstrance  on  cer 
tain  points,  and  gave  up,  for  example,  the  ludi 
crous  exactness  of 

"  I  've  measured  it  from  side  to  side, 
'T  is  three  feet  long  and  two  feet  wide." 

But  I  doubt  if  he  was  ever  really  convinced,  and  to 
his  dying  day  he  could  never  quite  shake  off  that 
habit  of  over-minute  detail  which  renders  the  nar 
ratives  of  uncultivated  people  so  tedious,  and  some 
times  so  distasteful.1  "Simon  Lee,"  after  his 
latest  revision,  still  contains  verses  like  these :  — 

"And  he  is  lean  and  he  is  sick ; 
His  body,  dwindled  and  awry, 
Bests  upon  ankles  swollen  and  thick  ; 
His  legs  are  thin  and  dry  ; 

Few  months  of  life  he  has  in  store, 
As  he  to  you  will  tell, 
For  still,  the  more  he  works,  the  more 
Do  his  weak  ankles  swell,"  — 

which  are  not  only  prose,  but  bad  prose,  and  more 
over  guilty  of  the  same  fault  for  which  Words 
worth  condemned  Dr.  Johnson's  famous  parody  on 
the  ballad-style,  —  that  their  "  matter  is  contemp 
tible."  The  sonorousness  of  conviction  with  which 

1  "  On  my  alluding  to  the  line, 

'  Three  feet  long  and  two  feet  wide,' 

and  confessing  that  I  dared  not  read  them  aloud  in  company,  he 
said,  'They  ought  to  be  liked.'"  (Crabb  Robinson,  9th  May, 
1815.)  His  ordinary  answer  to  criticisms  was  that  he  considered 
the  power  to  appreciate  the  passage  criticised  as  a  test  of  the  crit 
ic's  capacity  to  judge  of  poetry  at  all. 


386  WORDSWORTH 

Wordsworth  sometimes  gives  utterance  to  common 
places  of  thought  and  trivialities  of  sentiment  has 
a  ludicrous  effect  on  the  profane  and  even  on  the 
faithful  in  unguarded  moments.  We  are  reminded 
of  a  passage  in  u  The  Excursion  "  :  — 

"Lost!  I  heard 

From  yon  huge  breast  of  rock  a  solemn  bleat, 
Sent  forth  as  if  it  were  the  mountain'' s  voice." 

In  1800  the  friendship  of  Wordsworth  with 
Lamb  began,  and  was  thenceforward  never  inter 
rupted.  He  continued  to  live  at  Grasmere,  con 
scientiously  diligent  in  the  composition  of  poems, 
secure  of  finding  the  materials  of  glory  within  and 
around  him  ;  for  his  genius  taught  him  that  inspi 
ration  is  no  product  of  a  foreign  shore,  and  that 
no  adventurer  ever  found  it,  though  he  wandered 
as  long  as  Ulysses.  Meanwhile  the  appreciation 
of  the  best  minds  and  the  gratitude  of  the  purest 
hearts  gradually  centred  more  and  more  towards 
him.  In  1802  he  made  a  short  visit  to  France,  in 
company  with  Miss  Wordsworth,  and  soon  after 
his  return  to  England  was  married  to  Mary  Hutch- 
inson,  on  the  4th  of  October  of  the  same  year.  Of 
the  good  fortune  of  this  marriage  no  other  proof  is 
needed  than  the  purity  and  serenity  of  his  poems, 
and  its  record  is  to  be  sought  nowhere  else. 

On  the  18th  of  June,  1803,  his  first  child,  John, 
was  born,  and  on  the  14th  of  August  of  the  same 
year  he  set  out  with  his  sister  on  a  foot  journey 
into  Scotland.  Coleridge  was  their  companion 
during  a  part  of  this  excursion,  of  which  Miss 
Wordsworth  kept  a  full  diary.  In  Scotland  he 


WORDSWORTH  387 

made  the  acquaintance  of  Scott,  who  recited  to  him 
a  part  of  the  "  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,"  then  in 
manuscript.  The  travellers  returned  to  Grasmere 
on  the  25th  of  September.  It  was  during  this 
year  that  Wordsworth's  intimacy  with  the  excel 
lent  Sir  George  Beaumont  began.  Sir  George 
was  an  amateur  painter  of  considerable  merit,  and 
his  friendship  was  undoubtedly  of  service  to  Words 
worth  in  making  him  familiar  with  the  laws  of  a 
sister  art  and  thus  contributing  to  enlarge  the  sym 
pathies  of  his  criticism,  the  tendency  of  which  was 
toward  too  great  exclusiveness.  Sir  George  Beau 
mont,  dying  in  1827,  did  not  forego  his  regard  for 
the  poet,  but  contrived  to  hold  his  affection  in 
mortmain  by  the  legacy  of  an  annuity  of  <£100,  to 
defray  the  charges  of  a  yearly  journey. 

In  March,  1805,  the  poet's  brother,  John,  lost 
his  life  by  the  shipwreck  of  the  Abergavenny  East- 
Indiaman,  of  which  he  was  captain.  He  was  a 
man  of  great  purity  and  integrity,  and  sacrificed 
himself  to  his  sense  of  duty  by  refusing  to  leave 
the  ship  till  it  was  impossible  to  save  him.  Words 
worth  was  deeply  attached  to  him,  and  felt  such 
grief  at  his  death  as  only  solitary  natures  like  his 
are  capable  of,  though  mitigated  by  a  sense  of  the 
heroism  which  was  the  cause  of  it.  The  need  of 
mental  activity  as  affording  an  outlet  to  intense 
emotion  may  account  for  the  great  productiveness  of 
this  and  the  following  year.  He  now  completed 
"The  Prelude,"  wrote  "The  Wagoner,"  and  in 
creased  the  number  of  his  smaller  poems  enough  to 
fill  two  volumes,  which  were  published  in  1807. 


888  WORDSWORTH 

This  collection,  which  contained  some  of  the 
most  beautiful  of  his  shorter  pieces,  and  among 
others  the  incomparable  Odes  to  Duty  and  on  Im 
mortality,  did  not  reach  a  second  edition  till  1815. 
The  reviewers  had  another  laugh,  and  rival  poets 
pillaged  while  they  scoffed,  particularly  Byron, 
among  whose  verses  a  bit  of  Wordsworth  showed 
as  incongruously  as  a  sacred  vestment  on  the  back 
of  some  buccaneering  plunderer  of  an  abbey.1 
There  was  a  general  combination  to  put  him  down, 
but  on  the  other  hand  there  was  a  powerful  party 
in  his  favor,  consisting  of  William  Wordsworth. 
He  not  only  continued  in  good  heart  himself,  but, 
reversing  the  order  usual  on  such  occasions,  kept 
up  the  spirits  of  his  friends.2  Meanwhile  the 

1  Byron,  then  in  his  twentieth  year,  wrote  a  review  of  these 
volumes,  not,  on  the  whole,  unfair.     Crabb  Robinson  is  reported 
as  saying  that  Wordsworth  was  indignant  at  the  Edinburgh  Re 
view's  attack  on  Hours  of  Idleness.      "  The  young  man  will  do 
something  if  he  goes  on,"  he  said. 

2  The   Rev.   Dr.  Wordsworth  has  encumbered  the  memory  of 
his  uncle  with  two  volumes  of  Memoirs,  which  for  confused  drea 
riness  are  only  matched  by  the   Rev.  Mark  Noble's  History  of 
the  Protectorate  House  of  Cromwell.     It  is  a  misfortune  that  his 
materials  were  not  put  into  the  hands  of  Professor  Reed,  whose 
notes  to  the  American  edition  are  among  the  most  valuable  parts 
of  it,  as  they  certainly  are  the  clearest.     The  book  contains,  how 
ever,  some  valuable  letters  of  Wordsworth ;   and  those  relating 
to  this  part  of  his  life  should  be  read  by  every  student  of  his 
•works,  for  the  light  they  throw  upon  the  principles  which  gov 
erned  him  in  the  composition  of  his  poems.     In  a  letter  to  Lady 
Beaumont  (May  21,  1807)  he  says,  "  Trouble  not  yourself  upon 
their  present  reception ;  of  what  moment  is  that  compared  with 
what  I  trust  is  their  destiny  !  —  to  console  the  afflicted,  to  add 
sunshine  to  daylight  by  making  the  happy  happier ;  to  teach  the 
young  and  the  gracious  of  every  age,  to  see,  to  think  and  feel, 


WORDSWORTH  389 

higher  order  of  minds  among  his  contemporaries 
had  descried  and  acknowledged  him.  They  see 
their  peer  over  the  mist  and  lower  summits  be 
tween. 

"  When  Plinlimmon  hath  a  cap, 
Snowdon  wots  well  of  that." 

Wordsworth  passed  the  winter  of  1806-7  in  a 
house  of  Sir  George  Beaumont's,  at  Coleorton  in 
Leicestershire,  the  cottage  at  Grasmere  having  be 
come  too  small  for  his  increased  family.  On  his 
return  to  the  Vale  of  Grasmere  he  rented  the  house 
at  Allan  Bank,  where  he  lived  three  years.  Dur 
ing  this  period  he  appears  to  have  written  very 
little  poetry,  for  which  his  biographer  assigns  as  a 
primary  reason  the  smokiness  of  the  Allan  Bank 
chimneys.  This  will  hardly  account  for  the  failure 
of  the  summer  crop,  especially  as  Wordsworth  com 
posed  chiefly  in  the  open  air.  It  did  not  prevent 
him  from  writing  a  pamphlet  upon  the  Convention 
of  Cintra,  which  was  published  too  late  to  attract 

and  therefore  to  become  more  actively  and  securely  virtuous ; 
this  is  their  office,  which  I  trust  they  will  faithfully  perform  long 
after  we  (that  is,  all  that  is  mortal  of  us)  are  mouldered  in  our 
graves.  .  .  .  To  conclude,  my  ears  are  stone-dead  to  this  idle 
buzz  [of  hostile  criticism],  and  my  flesh  as  insensible  as  iron  to 
these  petty  stings ;  and,  after  what  I  have  said,  I  am  sure  yours 
will  be  the  same.  I  doubt  not  that  you  will  share  with  me  an  in 
vincible  confidence  that  my  writings  (and  among  them  these  little 
poems)  will  cooperate  with  the  benign  tendencies  in  human  nature 
and  society  wherever  found  ;  and  that  they  will  in  their  degree  be 
efficacious  in  making  men  wiser,  better,  and  happier."  Here  is 
an  odd  reversal  of  the  ordinary  relation  between  an  unpopular 
poet  and  his  little  public  of  admirers ;  it  is  he  who  keeps  up  their 
spirits,  and  supplies  them  with  faith  from  his  own  inexhaustible 
cistern. 


390  WORDSWORTH 

much  attention,  though  Lamb  says  that  its  effect 
upon  him  was  like  that  which  one  of  Milton's 
tracts  might  have  had  upon  a  contemporary.1  It 
was  at  Allan  Bank  that  Coleridge  dictated  "The 
Friend,"  and  Wordsworth  contributed  to  it  two 
essays,  one  in  answer  to  a  letter  of  Mathetes2 
(Professor  Wilson),  and  the  other  on  Epitaphs, 
republished  in  the  Notes  to  "The  Excursion." 
Here  also  he  wrote  his  "  Description  of  the  Scen 
ery  of  the  Lakes."  Perhaps  a  truer  explanation 
of  the  comparative  silence  of  Wordsworth's  Muse 
during  these  years  is  to  be  found  in  the  intense  in 
terest  which  he  took  in  current  events,  whose  va 
riety,  picturesqueness,  and  historical  significance 
were  enough  to  absorb  all  the  energies  of  his  imag 
ination. 

In  the  spring  of  1811  Wordsworth  removed  to 
the  Parsonage  at  Grasmere.  Here  he  remained 
two  years,  and  here  he  had  his  second  intimate  ex 
perience  of  sorrow  in  the  loss  of  two  of  his  children, 
Catharine  and  Thomas,  one  of  whom  died  4th  June, 
and  the  other  1st  December,  1812.3  Early  in  1813 

1  "  Wordsworth's  pamphlet  will  fail  of  producing  any  general 
effect,   because  the  sentences   are  long   and   involved ;    and  his 
friend  De  Quincey,  who  corrected  the   press,  has  rendered  them 
more  obscure  by  an  unusual  system  of  punctuation."     (Southey 
to  Scott,  30th  July,  1809.)     The  tract  is,  as  Southey  hints,  heavy. 

2  The  first  essay  in  the  third  volume  of  the  second  edition. 
8  Wordsworth's  children  were,  — 

John,  born  18th  June,  1803,  a  clergyman. 
Dorothy,  born  16th  August,  1804 ;  died  9th  July,  1847. 
Thomas,  born  16th  June,  1806 ;  died  1st  December,  1812. 
Catharine,  born  6th  September,  1808  ;  died  4th  June,  1812. 
William,  born  12th  May,  1810;  succeeded  his  father  as  Stamp. 
Distributor. 


WORDSWORTH  391 

be  bought  Rydal  Mount,  and,  having  removed 
thither,  changed  his  abode  no  more  during  the  rest 
of  his  life.  In  March  of  this  year  he  was  appointed 
Distributor  of  Stamps  for  the  county  of  Westmore 
land,  an  office  whose  receipts  rendered  him  inde 
pendent,  and  whose  business  he  was  able  to  do 
by  deputy,  thus  leaving  him  ample  leisure  for  no 
bler  duties.  De  Quincey  speaks  of  this  appoint 
ment  as  an  instance  of  the  remarkable  good  luck 
which  waited  upon  Wordsworth  through  his  whole 
life.  In  our  view  it  is  only  another  iDustration  of 
that  scripture  which  describes  the  righteous  as 
never  forsaken.  Good  luck  is  the  willing  hand 
maid  of  upright,  energetic  character,  and  conscien 
tious  observance  of  duty.  Wordsworth  owed  his 
nomination  to  the  friendly  exertions  of  the  Ear]  of 
Lonsdale,  who  desired  to  atone  as  far  as  might 
be  for  the  injustice  of  the  first  Earl,  and  who  re 
spected  the  honesty  of  the  man  more  than  he  ap 
preciated  the  originality  of  the  poet.1  The  Collec- 
torship  at  Whitehaven  (a  more  lucrative  office) 
was  afterwards  offered  to  Wordsworth,  and  de 
clined.  He  had  enough  for  independence,  and 
wished  nothing  more.  Still  later,  on  the  death  of 
the  Stamp-Distributor  for  Cumberland,  a  part  of 
that  district  was  annexed  to  Westmoreland,  and 

1  Good  luck  (in  the  sense  of  Chance)  seems  properly  to  be  the 
occurrence  of  Opportunity  to  one  who  has  neither  deserved  nor 
knows  how  to  use  it.  In  such  hands  it  commonly  turns  to  ill  luck. 
Moore's  Bermudan  appointment  is  an  instance  of  it.  Wordsworth 
had  a  sound  common-sense  and  practical  conscientiousness,  which 
enabled  him  to  fill  his  office  as  well  as  Dr.  Franklin  could  have 
done.  A  fitter  man  could  not  have  been  found  in  Westmoreland. 


392  WORDSWORTH 

Wordsworth's  income  was  raised  to  something  more 
than  .£1,000  a  year. 

In  1814  he  made  his  second  tour  in  Scotland, 
visiting  Yarrow  in  company  with  the  Ettrick 
Shepherd.  During  this  year  "  The  Excursion " 
was  published,  in  an  edition  of  five  hundred  copies, 
which  supplied  the  demand  for  six  years.  Another 
edition  of  the  same  number  of  copies  was  published 
in  1827,  and  not  exhausted  till  1834.  In  1815 
"  The  White  Doe  of  Rylstone  "  appeared,  and  in 
1816  "  A  Letter  to  a  Friend  of  Burns,"  in  which 
Wordsworth  gives  his  opinion  upon  the  limits  to 
be  observed  by  the  biographers  of  literary  men. 
It  contains  many  valuable  suggestions,  but  allows 
hardly  scope  enough  for  personal  details,  to  which 
he  was  constitutionally  indifferent.1  Nearly  the 
same  date  may  be  ascribed  to  a  rhymed  translation 
of  the  first  three  books  of  the  2Eneid,  a  specimen  of 
which  was  printed  in  the  Cambridge  "  Philological 
Museum  "  (1832).  In  1819  "  Peter  Bell,"  written 
twenty  years  before,  was  published,  and,  perhaps 
in  consequence  of  the  ridicule  of  the  reviewers, 
found  a  more  rapid  sale  than  any  of  his  previous 
volumes.  "  The  Wagoner,"  printed  in  the  same 
year,  was  less  successful.  His  next  publication  was 
the  volume  of  Sonnets  on  the  river  Duddon,  with 
some  miscellaneous  poems,  1820.  A  tour  on  the 
Continent  in  1820  furnished  the  subjects  for  an 
other  collection,  published  in  1822.  This  was  fol 
lowed  in  the  same  year  by  the  volume  of  "  Eccle- 

1  "I  am  not  one  who  much  or  oft  delight 
In  personal  talk." 


WORDSWORTH  393 

siastical  Sketches."  His  subsequent  publications 
were  "  Yarrow  Kevisited,"  1835,  and  the  tragedy 
of  "  The  Borderers,"  1842. 

During  all  these  years  his  fame  was  increasing 
slowly  but  steadily,  and  his  age  gathered  to  itself 
the  reverence  and  the  troops  of  friends  which  his 
poems  and  the  nobly  simple  life  reflected  in  them 
deserved.  Public  honors  followed  private  appreci 
ation.  In  1838  the  University  of  Dublin  conferred 
upon  him  the  degree  of  D.  C.  L.  In  1839  Oxford 
did  the  same,  and  the  reception  of  the  poet  (now  in 
his  seventieth  year)  at  the  University  was  enthu 
siastic.  In  1842  he  resigned  his  office  of  Stamp- 
Distributor,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  the  honor  of 
putting  him  upon  the  civil  list  for  a  pension  of 
.£300.  In  1843  he  was  appointed  Laureate,  with 
the  express  understanding  that  it  was  a  tribute  of 
respect,  involving  no  duties  except  such  as  might 
be  self-imposed.  His  only  official  production  was 
an  Ode  for  the  installation  of  Prince  Albert  as 
Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Cambridge.  His 
life  was  prolonged  yet  seven  years,  almost,  it  should 
seem,  that  he  might  receive  that  honor  which  he 
had  truly  conquered  for  himself  by  the  unflinching 
bravery  of  a  literary  life  of  half  a  century,  unpar 
alleled  for  the  scorn  with  which  its  labors  were  re 
ceived,  and  the  victorious  acknowledgment  which 
at  last  crowned  them.  Surviving  nearly  all  his 
contemporaries,  he  had,  if  ever  any  man  had,  a 
foretaste  of  immortality,  enjoying  in  a  sort  his  own 
posthumous  renown,  for  the  hardy  slowness  of  its 
growth  gave  a  safe  pledge  of  its  durability.  He 


394  WORDSWORTH 

died  on  the  23d  of  April,  1850,  the  anniversary  of 
the  death  of  Shakespeare. 

We  have  thus  briefly  sketched  the  life  of  Words 
worth,  —  a  life  uneventful  even  for  a  man  of  let 
ters  ;  a  life  like  that  of  an  oak,  of  quiet  self -devel 
opment,  throwing  out  stronger  roots  toward  the 
side  whence  the  prevailing  storm-blasts  blow,  and 
of  tougher  fibre  in  proportion  to  the  rocky  nature 
of  the  soil  in  which  it  grows.  The  life  and  growth 
of  his  mind,  and  the  influences  which  shaped  it,  are 
to  be  looked  for,  even  more  than  is  the  case  with 
most  poets,  in  his  works,  for  he  deliberately  re 
corded  them  there. 

Of  his  personal  characteristics  little  is  related. 
He  was  somewhat  above  the  middle  height,  but, 
according  to  De  Quincey,  of  indifferent  figure,  the 
shoulders  being  narrow  and  drooping.  His  finest 
feature  was  the  eye,  which  was  gray  and  full  of 
spiritual  light.  Leigh  Hunt  says  :  "  I  never  beheld 
eyes  that  looked  so  inspired,  so  supernatural.  They 
were  like  fires,  half  burning,  half  smouldering, 
with  a  sort  of  acrid  fixture  of  regard.  One  might 
imagine  Ezekiel  or  Isaiah  to  have  had  such  eyes." 
Southey  tells  us  that  he  had  no  sense  of  smell,  and 
Haydon  that  he  had  none  of  form.  The  best  like 
ness  of  him,  in  De  Quincey's  judgment,  is  the  por 
trait  of  Milton  prefixed  to  Richardson's  notes  on 
Paradise  Lost.  He  was  active  in  his  habits,  com 
posing  in  the  open  air,  and  generally  dictating  his 
poems.  His  daily  life  was  regular,  simple,  and 
frugal ;  his  manners  were  dignified  and  kindly ; 
and  in  his  letters  and  recorded  conversations  it  is 


WORDSWORTH  395 

remarkable  how  little  that  was  personal  entered 
into  his  judgment  of  contemporaries. 

The  true  rank  of  Wordsworth  among  poets  is, 
perhaps,  not  even  yet  to  be  fairly  estimated,  so 
hard  is  it  to  escape  into  the  quiet  hall  of  judgment 
uninflamed  by  the  tumult  of  partisanship  which 
besets  the  doors. 

Coming  to  manhood,  predetermined  to  be  a  great 
poet,  at  a  time  when  the  artificial  school  of  poetry 
was  enthroned  with  all  the  authority  of  long  suc 
cession  and  undisputed  legitimacy,  it  was  almost 
inevitable  that  Wordsworth,  who,  both  by  nature 
and  judgment  was  a  rebel  against  the  existing 
order,  should  become  a  partisan.  Unfortunately, 
he  became  not  only  the  partisan  of  a  system,  but  of 
William  Wordsworth  as  its  representative.  Right 
in  general  principle,  he  thus  necessarily  became 
wrong  in  particulars.  Justly  convinced  that  great 
ness  only  achieves  its  ends  by  implicitly  obeying 
its  own  instincts,  he  perhaps  reduced  the  following 
his  instincts  too  much  to  a  system,  mistook  his  own 
resentments  for  the  promptings  of  his  natural 
genius,  and,  compelling  principle  to  the  measure  of 
his  own  temperament  or  even  of  the  controversial 
exigency  of  the  moment,  fell  sometimes  into  the 
error  of  making  naturalness  itself  artificial.  If  a 
poet  resolve  to  be  original,  it  will  end  commonly  in 
his  being  merely  peculiar. 

Wordsworth  himself  departed  more  and  more  in 
practice,  as  he  grew  older,  from  the  theories  which 
he  had  laid  down  in  his  prefaces ; l  but  those  theo- 

1  How  far  he  swung  backward  toward  the  school  under  whose 


896  WORDSWORTH 

ries  undoubtedly  had  a  great  effect  in  retarding  the 
growth  of  his  fame.  He  had  carefully  constructed 
a  pair  of  spectacles  through  which  his  earlier  poems 
were  to  be  studied,  and  the  public  insisted  on  look 
ing  through  them  at  his  mature  works,  and  were 
consequently  unable  to  see  fairly  what  required  a 
different  focus.  He  forced  his  readers  to  come  to 
his  poetry  with  a  certain  amount  of  conscious  pre 
paration,  and  thus  gave  them  beforehand  the  im 
pression  of  something  like  mechanical  artifice,  and 
deprived  them  of  the  contented  repose  of  implicit 
faith.  To  the  child  a  watch  seems  to  be  a  living 
creature ;  but  Wordsworth  would  not  let  his  readers 
be  children,  and  did  injustice  to  himself  by  giving 
them  an  uneasy  doubt  whether  creations  which 

influence  he  grew  up,  and  toward  the  style  against  which  he  had 
protested  so  vigorously,  a  few  examples  will  show.  The  advocate 
of  the  language  of  common  life  has  a  verse  in  his  Thanksgiving 
Ode  which,  if  one  met  with  it  by  itself,  he  would  think  the  achieve 
ment  of  some  later  copyist  of  Pope  :  — 

"  While  the  tubed  engine  [the  organ]  feels  the  inspiring  blast." 

And  in  The  Italian  Itinerant  and  the  Swiss  Goatherd  we  find  a 
thermometer  or  barometer  called 

' '  The  well- wrought  scale 
Whose  sentient  tube  instructs  to  time 
A  purpose  to  a  fickle  clime." 

Still  worse  in  the  Eclipse  of  the  Sun,  1821 :  — 
' '  High  on  her  speculative  tower 
Stood  Science,  waiting  for  the  hour 
When  Sol  was  destined  to  endure 

That  darkening." 
Bo  in  The  Excursion, 

"  The  cold  March  wind  raised  in  her  tender  throat 
Viewless  obstructions." 


WORDSWORTH  397 

really  throbbed  with  the  very  heart's-blood  of  ge 
nius,  and  were  alive  with  nature's  life  of  life,  were 
not  contrivances  of  wheels  and  springs.  A  natural 
ness  which  we  are  told  to  expect  has  lost  the  crown 
ing  grace  of  nature.  The  men  who  walked  in  Cor 
nelius  Agrippa's  visionary  gardens  had  probably 
no  more  pleasurable  emotion  than  that  of  a  shallow 
wonder,  or  an  equally  shallow  self-satisfaction  in 
thinking  they  had  hit  upon  the  secret  of  the  thauma- 
turgy  ;  but  to  a  tree  that  has  grown  as  God  willed 
we  come  without  a  theory  and  with  no  botanical 
predilections,  enjoying  it  simply  and  thankfully ; 
or  the  Imagination  recreates  for  us  its  past  sum 
mers  and  winters,  the  birds  that  have  nested  and 
sung  in  it,  the  sheep  that  have  clustered  in  its 
shade,  the  winds  that  have  visited  it,  the  cloud- 
bergs  that  have  drifted  over  it,  and  the  snows  that 
have  ermined  it  in  winter.  The  Imagination  is  a 
faculty  that  flouts  at  foreordination,  and  "Words 
worth  seemed  to  do  all  he  could  to  cheat  his  read 
ers  of  her  company  by  laying  out  paths  with  a 
peremptory  Do  not  step  off  the  gravel!  at  the 
opening  of  each,  and  preparing  pitfalls  for  every 
conceivable  emotion,  with  guide-boards  to  tell  each 
when  and  where  it  must  be  caught. 

But  if  these  things  stood  in  the  way  of  immedi 
ate  appreciation,  he  had  another  theory  which  inter 
feres  more  seriously  with  the  total  and  permanent 
effect  of  his  poems.  He  was  theoretically  de 
termined  not  only  to  be  a  philosophic  poet,  but  to 
be  a  great  philosophic  poet,  and  to  this  end  he 
must  produce  an  epic.  Leaving  aside  the  question 


398  WORDSWORTH 

whether  the  epic  be  obsolete  or  not,  it  may  be 
doubted  whether  the  history  of  a  single  man's  mind 
is  universal  enough  in  its  interest  to  furnish  all  the 
requirements  of  the  epic  machinery,  and  it  may  be 
more  than  doubted  whether  a  poet's  philosophy  be 
ordinary  metaphysics,  divisible  into  chapter  and 
section.  It  is  rather  something  which  is  more  ener 
getic  in  a  word  than  in  a  whole  treatise,  and  our 
hearts  unclose  themselves  instinctively  at  its  simple 
Open  sesame  !  while  they  would  stand  firm  against 
the  reading  of  the  whole  body  of  philosophy.  In 
point  of  fact,  the  one  element  of  greatness  which 
*'  The  Excursion  "  possesses  indisputably  is  heavi 
ness.  It  is  only  the  episodes  that  are  universally 
read,  and  the  effect  of  these  is  diluted  by  the  con 
necting  and  accompanying  lectures  on  metaphy 
sics.  Wordsworth  had  his  epic  mould  to  fill,  and, 
like  Benvenuto  Cellini  in  casting  his  Perseus,  was 
forced  to  throw  in  everything,  debasing  the  metal 
lest  it  should  run  short.  Separated  from  the  rest, 
the  episodes  are  perfect  poems  in  their  kind,  and 
without  example  in  the  language. 

Wordsworth,  like  most  solitary  men  of  strong 
minds,  was  a  good  critic  of  the  substance  of  poetry, 
but  somewhat  niggardly  in  the  allowance  he  made 
for  those  subsidiary  qualities  which  make  it  the 
charmer  of  leisure  and  the  employment  of  minds 
without  definite  object.  It  may  be  doubted,  in 
deed,  whether  he  set  much  store  by  any  contempo 
rary  writing  but  his  own,  and  whether  he  did  not 
look  upon  poetry  too  exclusively  as  an  exercise 
rather  of  the  intellect  than  as  a  nepenthe  of  the 


WORDSWORTH  399 

imagination.1     He  says  of  himself,  speaking  of  his 
youth :  — 

"In  fine, 

I  was  a  better  judge  of  thoughts  than  words, 
Misled  in  estimating  words,  not  only 
By  common  inexperience  of  youth, 
But  by  the  trade  in  classic  niceties, 
The  dangerous  craft  of  culling  term  and  phrase 
From  languages  that  want  the  living  voice 
To  carry  meaning  to  the  natural  heart ; 
To  tell  us  what  is  passion,  what  is  truth, 
What  reason,  what  simplicity  and  sense."  a 

Though  he  here  speaks  in  the  preterite  tense,  this 
was  always  true  of  him,  and  his  thought  seems 
often  to  lean  upon  a  word  too  weak  to  bear  its 
weight.  No  reader  of  adequate  insight  can  help 
regretting  that  he  did  not  earlier  give  himself  to 
"  the  trade  of  classic  niceties."  It  was  precisely 
this  which  gives  to  the  blank-verse  of  Landor  the 
severe  dignity  and  reserved  force  which  alone 
among  later  poets  recall  the  tune  of  Milton,  and 
to  which  Wordsworth  never  attained.  Indeed, 
Wordsworth's  blank-verse  (though  the  passion  be 
profounder)  is  always  essentially  that  of  Cowper. 
They  were  alike  also  in  their  love  of  outward  na 
ture  and  of  simple  things.  The  main  difference 
between  them  is  one  of  scenery  rather  than  of  sen 
timent,  between  the  life-long  familiar  of  the  moun 
tains  and  the  dweller  on  the  plain. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  in  Wordsworth  the 
very  highest  powers  of  the  poetic  mind  were  asso- 

1  According  to  Landor,  he  pronounced  all  Scott's  poetry  to  be 
"  not  worth  five  shillings." 

2  Prelude,  Book  VI. 


400  WORDSWORTH 

ciated  with  a  certain  tendency  to  the  diffuse  and 
commonplace.  It  is  in  the  understanding  (always 
prosaic)  that  the  great  golden  veins  of  his  imagi 
nation  are  imbedded.1  He  wrote  too  much  to 
write  always  well;  for  it  is  not  a  great  Xerxes- 
army  of  words,  but  a  compact  Greek  ten  thousand, 
that  march  safely  down  to  posterity.  He  set  tasks 
to  his  divine  faculty,  which  is  much  the  same  as 
trying  to  make  Jove's  eagle  do  the  service  of  a 
clucking  hen.  Throughout  "  The  Prelude  "  and 
"The  Excursion"  he  seems  striving  to  bind  the 
wizard  Imagination  with  the  sand-ropes  of  dry  dis 
quisition,  and  to  have  forgotten  the  potent  spell- 
word  which  would  make  the  particles  cohere.  There 
is  an  arenaceous  quality  in  the  style  which  makes 
progress  wearisome.  Yet  with  what  splendors  as 
of  mountain-sunsets  are  we  rewarded  !  what  golden 
rounds  of  verse  do  we  not  see  stretching  heaven 
ward  with  angels  ascending  and  descending !  what 
haunting  harmonies  hover  around  us  deep  and 
eternal  like  the  undying  barytone  of  the  sea!  and 
if  we  are  compelled  to  fare  through  sands  and 
desert  wildernesses,  how  often  do  we  not  hear  airy 
shapes  that  syllable  our  names  with  a  startling 

1  This  was  instinctively  felt,  even  by  his  admirers.  Miss  Mar- 
tineau  said  to  Crabb  Robinson  in  1839,  speaking  of  Wordsworth's 
conversation :  "  Sometimes  he  is  annoying  from  the  pertinacity 
with  which  he  dwells  on  trifles  ;  at  other  times  he  flows  on  in  the 
utmost  grandeur,  leaving  a  strong  impression  of  inspiration." 
Robinson  tells  us  that  he  read  Resolution  and  Independence  to  a 
lady  who  was  affected  by  it  even  to  tears,  and  then  said,  "  I  have 
not  heard  anything  for  years  that  so  much  delighted  me ;  but, 
after  all,  it  is  not  poetry." 


WORDS  WOR  TH  401 

personal  appeal  to  our  highest  consciousness  and 
our  noblest  aspiration,  such  as  we  wait  for  in  vain 
in  any  other  poet !  Landor,  in  a  letter  to  Miss 
Holford,  says  admirably  of  him,  "  Common  minds 
alone  can  be  ignorant  what  breadth  of  philos 
ophy,  what  energy  and  intensity  of  thought,  what 
insight  into  the  heart,  and  what  observation  of 
nature  are  requisite  for  the  production  of  such 
poetry." 

Take  from  "Wordsworth  all  which  an  honest  crit 
icism  cannot  but  allow,  and  what  is  left  will  show 
how  truly  great  he  was.  He  had  no  humor,  no 
dramatic  power,  and  his  temperament  was  of  that 
dry  and  juiceless  quality,  that  in  all  his  published 
correspondence  you  shall  not  find  a  letter,  but  only 
essays.  If  we  consider  carefully  where  he  was 
most  successful,  we  shall  find  that  it  was  not  so 
much  in  description  of  natural  scenery,  or  deline 
ation  of  character,  as  in  vivid  expression  of  the 
effect  produced  by  external  objects  and  events 
upon  his  own  mind,  and  of  the  shape  and  hue  (per 
haps  momentary)  which  they  in  turn  took  from  his 
mood  or  temperament.  His  finest  passages  are 
always  monologues.  He  had  a  fondness  for  par 
ticulars,  and  there  are  parts  of  his  poems  which 
remind  us  of  local  histories  in  the  undue  relative 
importance  given  to  trivial  matters.  He  was  the 
historian  of  Wordsworthshire.  This  power  of  par- 
ticularization  (for  it  is  as  truly  a  power  as  general 
ization)  is  what  gives  such  vigor  and  greatness  to 
single  lines  and  sentiments  of  Wordsworth,  and  to 
poems  developing  a  single  thought  or  sentiment^ 


402  WORDSWORTH 

It  was  this  that  made  him  so  fond  of  the  sonnet. 
That  sequestered  nook  forced  upon  him  the  limits 
which  his  fecundity  (if  I  may  not  say  his  garrulity) 
was  never  self-denying  enough  to  impose  on  itself. 
It  suits  his  solitary  and  meditative  temper,  and  it 
was  there  that  Lamb  (an  admirable  judge  of  what 
was  permanent  in  literature)  liked  him  best.  Its 
narrow  bounds,  but  fourteen  paces  from  end  to 
end,  turn  into  a  virtue  his  too  common  fault  of  giv 
ing  undue  prominence  to  every  passing  emotion. 
He  excels  in  monologue,  and  the  law  of  the  sonnet 
tempers  monologue  with  mercy.  In  "  The  Excur 
sion  "  we  are  driven  to  the  subterfuge  of  a  French 
verdict  of  extenuating  circumstances.  His  mind 
had  not  that  reach  and  elemental  movement  of 
Milton's,  which,  like  the  trade-wind,  gathered  to 
itself  thoughts  and  images  like  stately  fleets  from 
every  quarter ;  some  deep  with  silks  and  spicery, 
some  brooding  over  the  silent  thunders  of  their  bat 
tailous  armaments,  but  all  swept  forward  in  their 
destined  track,  over  the  long  billows  of  his  verse, 
every  inch  of  canvas  strained  by  the  unifying  breath 
of  their  common  epic  impulse.  It  was  an  organ 
that  Milton  mastered,  mighty  in  compass,  capable 
equally  of  the  trumpet's  ardors  or  the  slim  deli 
cacy  of  the  flute,  and  sometimes  it  bursts  forth  in 
great  crashes  through  his  prose,  as  if  he  touched  it 
for  solace  in  the  intervals  of  his  toil.  If  Words 
worth  sometimes  put  the  trumpet  to  his  lips,  yet 
he  lays  it  aside  soon  and  willingly  for  his  appro 
priate  instrument,  the  pastoral  reed.  And  it  is 
not  one  that  grew  by  any  vulgar  stream,  but  that 


WORDSWORTH  403 

which  Apollo  breathed  through,  tending  the  flocks 
of  Admetus,  —  that  which  Pan  endowed  with  every 
melody  of  the  visible  universe,  —  the  same  in  which 
the  soul  of  the  despairing  nymph  took  refuge  and 
gifted  with  her  dual  nature,  —  so  that  ever  and 
anon,  amid  the  notes  of  human  joy  or  sorrow,  there 
comes  suddenly  a  deeper  and  almost  awful  tone, 
thrilling  us  into  dim  consciousness  of  a  forgotten 
divinity. 

Wordsworth's  absolute  want  of  humor,  while  it 
no  doubt  confirmed  his  self-confidence  by  making 
him  insensible  both  to  the  comical  incongruity  into 
which  he  was  often  led  by  his  earlier  theory  con 
cerning  the  language  of  poetry  and  to  the  not  un 
natural  ridicule  called  forth  by  it,  seems  to  have 
been  indicative  of  a  certain  dulness  of  perception 
in  other  directions.1  We  cannot  help  feeling  that 

1  Nowhere  is  this  displayed  with  more  comic  self-complacency 
than  when  he  thought  it  needful  to  rewrite  the  ballad  of  Helen  of 
Kirconnel,  —  a  poem  hardly  to  be  matched  in  any  language  for 
swiftness  of  movement  and  savage  sincerity  of  feeling.  Its  shud*- 
dering  compression  is  masterly. 

"  Curst  be  the  heart  that  thought  the  thought, 
And  curst  the  hand  that  fired  the  shot, 
When  in  my  arms  burd  Helen  dropt, 
That  died  to  succor  me ! 

O,  think  ye  not  my  heart  was  sair 

When  my  love  dropt  down  and  spake  na  mair  ?  " 

Compare  this  with,  — 

"  Proud  Gordon  cannot  bear  the  thoughts 
That  through  his  brain  are  travelling^ 
And,  starting  up,  to  Bruce's  heart 
He  launched  a  deadly  javelin : 


404  WORDSWORTH 

the  material  of  his  nature  was  essentially  prose, 
which,  in  his  inspired  moments,  he  had  the  power 
of  transmuting,  but  which,  whenever  the  inspira 
tion  failed  or  was  factitious,  remained  obstinately 
leaden.    The  normal  condition  of  many  poets  would 
seem  to  approach  that  temperature  to  which  Words- 
Fair  Ellen  saw  it  when  it  came, 
And,  stepping  forth  to  meet  the  same, 
Did  with  her  body  cover 
The  Youth,  her  chosen  lover. 


And  Bruce  (as  soon  as  he  had  slain 
The  Gordon)  sailed  away  to  Spain, 
And  fought  with  rage  incessant 
Against  the  Moorish  Crescent." 

These  are  surely  the  verses  of  an  attorney's  clerk  "penning  a 
stanza  when  he  should  engross. "  It  will  be  noticed  that  Words 
worth  here  also  departs  from  his  earlier  theory  of  the  language  of 
poetry  by  substituting  a  javelin  for  a  bullet  as  less  modern  and 
familiar.  Had  he  written,  — 

"  And  Gordon  never  gave  a  hint, 
But,  having  somewhat  picked  his  flint, 
Let  fly  the  fatal  bullet 
That  killed  that  lovely  pullet," 

it  would  hardly  have  seemed  more  like  a  parody  than  the  rest. 
He  shows  the  same  insensibility  in  a  note  upon  the  Ancient  Mari 
ner  in  the  second  edition  of  the  Lyrical  Ballads :  "  The  poem  of 
my  friend  has  indeed  great  defects  ;  first,  that  the  principal  per 
son  has  no  distinct  character,  either  in  his  profession  of  mariner, 
or  as  a  human  being  who,  having  been  long  under  the  control  of 
supernatural  impressions,  might  be  supposed  himself  to  partake 
of  something  supernatural ;  secondly,  that  he  does  not  act,  but  is 
continually  acted  upon  ;  thirdly,  that  the  events,  having  no  neces 
sary  connection,  do  not  produce  each  other ;  and  lastly,  that  the 
imagery  is  somewhat  laboriously  accumulated. "  Here  is  an  in 
dictment,  to  be  sure,  and  drawn,  plainly  enough,  by  the  attorney's 
clerk  aforenamed.  One  would  think  that  the  strange  charm  of 
Coleridge's  most  truly  original  poems  lay  in  this  very  emancipa 
tion  from  the  laws  of  cause  and  effect. 


WORDSWORTH  405 

worth's  mind  could  be  raised  only  by  the  white 
heat  of  profoundly  inward  passion.  And  in  pro 
portion  to  the  intensity  needful  to  make  his  nature 
thoroughly  aglow  is  the  very  high  quality  of  his 
best  verses.  They  seem  rather  the  productions  of 
nature  than  of  man,  and  have  the  lastingness  of 
such,  delighting  our  age  with  the  same  startle  of 
newness  and  beauty  that  pleased  our  youth.  Is  it 
his  thought  ?  It  has  the  shifting  inward  lustre  of 
diamond.  Is  it  his  feeling  ?  It  is  as  delicate  as  the 
impressions  of  fossil  ferns.  He  seems  to  have 
caught  and  fixed  forever  in  immutable  grace  the 
most  evanescent  and  intangible  of  our  intuitions, 
the  very  ripple-marks  on  the  remotest  shores  of 
being.  But  this  intensity  of  mood  which  insures 
high  quality  is  by  its  very  nature  incapable  of  pro 
longation,  and  "Wordsworth,  in  endeavoring  it, 
falls  more  below  himself,  and  is,  more  even  than 
many  poets  his  inferiors  in  imaginative  quality,  a 
poet  of  passages.  Indeed,  one  cannot  help  having 
the  feeling  sometimes  that  the  poem  is  there  for 
the  sake  of  these  passages,  rather  than  that  these 
are  the  natural  jets  and  elations  of  a  mind  ener 
gized  by  the  rapidity  of  its  own  motion.  In  other 
words,  the  happy  couplet  or  gracious  image  seems 
not  to  spring  from  the  inspiration  of  the  poem  con 
ceived  as  a  whole,  but  rather  to  have  dropped  of 
itself  into  the  mind  of  the  poet  in  one  of  his  ram 
bles,  who  then,  in  a  less  rapt  mood,  has  patiently 
built  up  around  it  a  setting  of  verse  too  often  un 
graceful  in  form  and  of  a  material  whose  cheapness 
may  cast  a  doubt  on  the  priceless  quality  of  the 


406  WORDSWORTH 

gem  it  encumbers.1  During  the  most  happily  pro 
ductive  period  of  his  life,  Wordsworth  was  impa 
tient  of  what  may  be  called  the  mechanical  portion 
of  his  art.  His  wife  and  sister  seem  from  the  first 
to  have  been  his  scribes.  In  later  years,  he  had 
learned  and  often  insisted  on  the  truth  that  poetry 
was  an  art  no  less  than  a  gift,  and  corrected  his 
poems  in  cold  blood,  sometimes  to  their  detriment. 
But  he  certainly  had  more  of  the  vision  than  of  the 
faculty  divine,  and  was  always  a  little  numb  on  the 
side  of  form  and  proportion.  Perhaps  his  best 
poem  in  these  respects  is  the  "  Laodamia,"  and  it 
is  not  uninstructive  to  learn  from  his  own  lips  that 
"  it  cost  him  more  trouble  than  almost  anything  of 
equal  length  he  had  ever  written."  His  longer 
poems  (miscalled  epical)  have  no  more  intimate 
bond  of  union  than  their  more  or  less  immediate 
relation  to  his  own  personality.  Of  character 
other  than  his  own  he  had  but  a  faint  conception, 
and  all  the  personages  of  "  The  Excursion  "  that 
are  not  Wordsworth  are  the  merest  shadows  of 
himself  upon  mist,  for  his  self-concentrated  nature 
was  incapable  of  projecting  itself  into  the  conscious 
ness  of  other  men  and  seeing  the  springs  of  action 
at  their  source  in  the  recesses  of  individual  charac 
ter.  The  best  parts  of  these  longer  poems  are 
bursts  of  impassioned  soliloquy,  and  his  fingers  were 

1  "  A  hundred  times  when,  roving  high  and  low, 
I  have  been  harassed  with  the  toil  of  verse, 
Much  pains  and  little  progress,  and  at  once 
Some  lovely  Image  in  the  song  rose  up,  . 
Fall-formed,  like  Venus  rising  from  the  sea." 

Prelude,  Book  IV. 


WORDSWORTH  407 

always  clumsy  at  the  callida  junctura.  The  stream 
of  narration  is  sluggish,  if  varied  by  times  with 
pleasing  reflections  (viridesque  placido  cequore 
sylvas)  ;  we  are  forced  to  do  our  own  rowing,  and 
only  when  the  current  is  hemmed  in  by  some  nar 
row  gorge  of  the  poet's  personal  consciousness  do 
we  feel  ourselves  snatched  along  on  the  smooth  but 
impetuous  rush  of  unmistakable  inspiration.  The 
fact  that  what  is  precious  in  Wordsworth's  poetry 
was  (more  truly  even  than  with  some  greater  poets 
than  he)  a  gift  rather  than  an  achievement  should 
always  be  borne  in  mind  in  taking  the  measure  of 
his  power.  I  know  not  whether  to  call  it  height  or 
depth,  this  peculiarity  of  his,  but  it  certainly  en 
dows  those  parts  of  his  work  which  we  should  dis 
tinguish  as  Wordsworthian  with  an  unexpectedness 
and  impressiveness  of  originality  such  as  we  feel 
in  the  presence  of  Nature  herself.  He  seems  to 
have  been  half  conscious  of  this,  and  recited  his 
own  poems  to  all  comers  with  an  enthusiasm  of 
wondering  admiration  that  would  have  been  pro 
foundly  comic1  but  for  its  simple  sincerity  and 
for  the  fact  that  William  Wordsworth,  Esquire, 
of  Rydal  Mount,  was  one  person,  and  the  William 
Wordsworth  whom  he  so  heartily  reverenced  quite 
another.  We  recognize  two  voices  in  him,  as 
Stephano  did  in  Caliban.  There  are  Jeremiah  and 

1  Mr.  Emerson  tells  us  that  he  was  at  first  tempted  to  smile, 
and  Mr.  Ellis  Yarnall  (who  saw  him  in  his  eightieth  year)  says, 
"  These  quotations  [from  his  own  works]  he  read  in  a  way  that 
much  impressed  me  ;  it  seemed  almost  as  if  he  were  awed  by  the 
greatness  of  his  own  power,  the  gifts  with  which  he  had  been  endowed."" 
(The  italics  are  mine.) 


408  WORDSWORTH 

his  scribe  Baruch.  If  the  prophet  cease  from  dic 
tating,  the  amanuensis,  rather  than  be  idle,  employs 
his  pen  in  jotting  down  some  anecdotes  of  his  mas 
ter,  how  he  one  day  went  out  and  saw  an  old  woman, 
and  the  next  day  did  not,  and  so  came  home  and 
dictated  some  verses  on  this  ominous  phenomenon, 
and  how  another  day  he  saw  a  cow.  These  mar 
ginal  annotations  have  been  carelessly  taken  up 
into  the  text,  have  been  religiously  held  by  the 
pious  to  be  orthodox  scripture,  and  by  dexterous 
exegesis  have  been  made  to  yield  deeply  oracular 
meanings.  Presently  the  real  prophet  takes  up  the 
word  again  and  speaks  as  one  divinely  inspired,  the 
Voice  of  a  higher  and  invisible  power.  Words 
worth's  better  utterances  have  the  bare  sincerity, 
the  absolute  abstraction  from  time  and  place,  the 
immunity  from  decay,  that  belong  to  the  grand 
simplicities  of  the  Bible.  They  seem  not  more  his 
own  than  ours  and  every  man's,  the  word  of  the 
inalterable  Mind.  This  gift  of  his  was  naturally 
very  much  a  matter  of  temperament,  and  accord 
ingly  by  far  the  greater  part  of  his  finer  product 
belongs  to  the  period  of  his  prime,  ere  Time  had 
set  his  lumpish  foot  on  the  pedal  that  deadens  the 
nerves  of  animal  sensibility.1  He  did  not  grow  as 
those  poets  do  in  whom  the  artistic  sense  is  predom- 

1  His  best  poetry  was  written  when  he  was  under  the  immedi 
ate  influence  of  Coleridge.  Coleridge  seems  to  have  felt  this,  for 
it  is  evidently  to  Wordsworth  that  he  alludes  when  he  speaks  of 
"  those  who  have  been  so  well  pleased  that  I  should,  year  after 
year,  flow  with  a  hundred  nameless  rills  into  their  main  stream." 
(Letters,  Conversations,  and  Recollections  of  S.  T.  C.,  vol.  i.  pp. 
5-6.)  "  Wordsworth  found  fault  with  the  repetition  of  the  con- 


WORDSWORTH  409 

inant.  One  of  the  most  delightful  fancies  of  the 
Genevese  humorist,  Toepffer,  is  the  poet  Albert, 
who,  having  had  his  portrait  drawn  by  a  highly 
idealizing  hand,  does  his  best  afterwards  to  look 
like  it.  Many  of  Wordsworth's  later  poems  seem 
like  rather  unsuccessful  efforts  to  resemble  his  for 
mer  self.  They  would  never,  as  Sir  John  Harring 
ton  says  of  poetry,  "  keep  a  child  from  play  and  an 
old  man  from  the  chimney-corner."  l 

Chief  Justice  Marshall  once  blandly  interrupted 
a  junior  counsel  who  was  arguing  certain  obvi 
ous  points  of  law  at  needless  length,  by  saying, 
"  Brother  Jones,  there  are  some  things  which  a 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  sitting  in 
equity  may  be  presumed  to  know."  Wordsworth 
has  this  fault  of  enforcing  and  restating  obvious 
points  till  the  reader  feels  as  if  his  own  intelligence 
were  somewhat  underrated.  He  is  over-conscien 
tious  in  giving  us  full  measure,  and  once  profoundly 
absorbed  in  the  sound  of  his  own  voice,  he  knows 
not  when  to  stop.  If  he  feel  himself  flagging,  he 
has  a  droll  way  of  keeping  the  floor,  as  it  were,  by 
asking  himself  a  series  of  questions  sometimes  not 

eluding  sound  of  the  participles  in  Shakespeare's  line  about  bees : 
1  The  singing  masons  building  roofs  of  gold.' 

This,  he  said,  was  a  line  that  Milton  never  would  have  written. 
Keats  thought,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  repetition  was  in  har 
mony  with  the  continued  note  of  the  singers."  (Leigh  Hunt's 
Autobiography.)  Wordsworth  writes  to  Crabb  Robinson  in  1837, 
"  My  ear  is  susceptible  to  the  clashing  of  sounds  almost  to  dis 
ease."  One  cannot  help  thinking  that  his  training  in  these  nice 
ties  was  begun  by  Coleridge. 

1  In  the  Preface  to  his  translation  of  the  Orlando  Furioso, 


410  WORDSWORTH 

needing,  and  often  incapable  of  answer.  There  are 
three  stanzas  of  such  near  the  close  of  the  First 
Part  of  "  Peter  Bell,"  where  Peter  first  catches  a 
glimpse  of  the  dead  body  in  the  water,  all  happily 
incongruous,  and  ending  with  one  which  reaches 
the  height  of  comicality  :  — 

"  Is  it  a  fiend  that  to  a  stake 
Of  fire  his  desperate  self  is  tethering  ? 
Or  stubborn  spirit  doomed  to  yell, 
In  solitary  ward  or  cell, 
Ten  thousand  miles  from  all  his  brethren  ?  '' 

The  same  want  of  humor  which  made  him  insensi 
ble  to  incongruity  may  perhaps  account  also  for  the 
singular  unconsciousness  of  disproportion  which  so 
often  strikes  us  in  his  poetry.  For  example,  a  little 
farther  on  in  "  Peter  Bell  "  we  find :  — 

"  Now  —  like  a  tempest-shattered  bark 
That  overwhelmed  and  prostrate  lies, 
And  in  a  moment  to  the  verge 
Is  lifted  of  a  foaming  surge  — 
Full  suddenly  the  Ass  doth  rise  !  " 

And  one  cannot  help  thinking  that  the  similes  of 
the  huge  stone,  the  sea-beast,  and  the  cloud,  noble 
as  they  are  in  themselves,  are  somewhat  too  lofty 
for  the  service  to  which  they  are  put.1 

The  movement  of  Wordsworth's  mind  was  too 
slow  and  his  mood  too  meditative  for  narrative 
poetry.  He  values  his  own  thoughts  and  reflections 
too  much  to  sacrifice  the  least  of  them  to  the  inter 
ests  of  his  story.  Moreover,  it  is  never  action  that 
interests  him,  but  the  subtle  motives  that  lead  to  or 
hinder  it.  "  The  Wagoner  "  involuntarily  suggests 
1  In  Resolution  and  Independence, 


WORDSWORTH  411 

a  comparison  with  "  Tarn  O'Shanter  "  infinitely  to 
its  own  disadvantage.  "  Peter  Bell,"  full  though 
it  be  of  profound  touches  and  subtle  analysis,  is 
lumbering  and  disjointed.  Even  Lamb  was  forced 
to  confess  that  he  did  not  like  it.  "The  White 
Doe,"  the  most  Wordsworthian  of  them  all  in  the 
best  meaning  of  the  epithet,  is  also  only  the  more 
truly  so  for  being  diffuse  and  reluctant.  What 
charms  in  Wordsworth  and  will  charm  forever  is 
the 

"  Happy  tone 

Of  meditation  slipping  in  between 
The  beauty  coming  and  the  beauty  gone." 

A  few  poets,  in  the  exquisite  adaptation  of  their 
words  to  the  tune  of  our  own  feelings  and  fancies, 
in  the  charm  of  their  manner,  indefinable  as  the 
sympathetic  grace  of  woman,  are  everything  to  us 
without  our  being  able  to  say  that  they  are  much 
in  themselves.  They  rather  narcotize  than  fortify. 
Wordsworth  must  subject  our  mood  to  his  own  be 
fore  he  admits  us  to  his  intimacy ;  but,  once  admit 
ted,  it  is  for  life,  and  we  find  ourselves  in  his  debt, 
not  for  what  he  has  been  to  us  in  our  hours  of 
relaxation,  but  for  what  he  has  done  for  us  as  a 
reinforcement  of  faltering  purpose  and  personal 
independence  of  character.  His  system  of  a  Na 
ture-cure,  first  professed  by  Dr.  Jean  Jacques  and 
continued  by  Cowper,  certainly  breaks  down  as  a 
whole.  The  Solitary  of  "  The  Excursion,"  who  has 
not  been  cured  of  his  scepticism  by  living  among 
the  medicinal  mountains,  is,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
equally  proof  against  the  lectures  of  Pedler  and 


412  WORDSWORTH 

Parson.  Wordsworth  apparently  felt  that  this 
would  be  so,  and  accordingly  never  saw  his  way. 
clear  to  finishing  the  poem.  But  the  treatment, 
whether  a  panacea  or  not,  is  certainly  wholesome, 
inasmuch  as  it  inculcates  abstinence,  exercise,  and 
uncontaminate  air.  I  am  not  sure,  indeed,  that  the 
Nature-cure  theory  does  not  tend  to  foster  in  con 
stitutions  less  vigorous  than  Wordsworth's  what 
Milton  would  call  a  fugitive  and  cloistered  virtue 
at  a  dear  expense  of  manlier  qualities.  The  an 
cients  and  our  own  Elizabethans,  ere  spiritual  me 
grims  had  become  fashionable,  perhaps  made  more 
out  of  life  by  taking  a  frank  delight  in  its  action 
and  passion  and  by  grappling  with  the  facts  of  this 
world,  rather  than  muddling  themselves  over  the 
insoluble  problems  of  another.  If  they  had  not 
discovered  the  picturesque,  as  we  understand  it, 
they  found  surprisingly  fine  scenery  in  man  and  his 
destiny,  and  would  have  seen  something  ludicrous, 
it  may  be  suspected,  in  the  spectacle  of  a  grown 
man  running  to  hide  his  head  in  the  apron  of  the 
Mighty  Mother  whenever  he  had  an  ache  in  his 
finger  or  got  a  bruise  in  the  tussle  for  existence. 

But  when,  as  I  have  said,  our  impartiality  has 
made  all  those  qualifications  and  deductions  against 
which  even  the  greatest  poet  may  not  plead  his 
privilege,  what  is  left  to  Wordsworth  is  enough 
to  justify  his  fame.  Even  where  his  genius  is 
wrapped  in  clouds,  the  unconquerable  lightning  of 
imagination  struggles  through,  flashing  out  unex 
pected  vistas,  and  illuminating  the  humdrum  path 
way  of  our  daily  thought  with  a  radiance  of  mo- 


WORDS  WORTH  413 

mentary  consciousness  that  seems  like  a  revelation. 
If  it  be  the  most  delightful  function  of  the  poet  to 
set  our  lives  to  music,  yet  perhaps  he  will  be  even 
more  sure  of  our  maturer  gratitude  if  he  do  his 
part  also  as  moralist  and  philosopher  to  purify  and 
enlighten ;  if  he  define  and  encourage  our  vacilla 
ting  perceptions  of  duty ;  if  he  piece  together  our 
fragmentary  apprehensions  of  our  own  life  and  that 
larger  life  whose  unconscious  instruments  we  are, 
making  of  the  jumbled  bits  of  our  dissected  map  of 
experience  a  coherent  chart.  In  the  great  poets 
there  is  an  exquisite  sensibility  both  of  soul  and 
sense  that  sympathizes  like  gossamer  sea-moss  with 
every  movement  of  the  element  in  which  it  floats, 
but  which  is  rooted  on  the  solid  rock  of  our  com 
mon  sympathies.  Wordsworth  shows  less  of  this 
finer  feminine  fibre  of  organization  than  one  or  two 
of  his  contemporaries,  notably  than  Coleridge  or 
Shelley;  but  he  was  a  masculine  thinker,  and  in 
his  more  characteristic  poems  there  is  always  a 
kernel  of  firm  conclusion  from  far-reaching  princi 
ples  that  stimulates  thought  and  challenges  medi 
tation.  Groping  in  the  dark  passages  of  life,  we 
come  upon  some  axiom  of  his,  as  it  were  a  wall 
that  gives  us  our  bearings  and  enables  us  to  find 
an  outlet.  Compared  with  Goethe  we  feel  that  he 
lacks  that  serene  impartiality  of  mind  which  results 
from  breadth  of  culture ;  nay,  he  seems  narrow,  in 
sular,  almost  provincial.  He  reminds  us  of  those 
saints  of  Dante  who  gather  brightness  by  revolving 
on  their  own  axis.  But  through  this  very  limitation 
of  range  he  gains  perhaps  in  intensity  and  the  im 


414  WORDSWORTH 

pressiveness  which  results  from  eagerness  of  per 
sonal  conviction.  If  we  read  Wordsworth  through, 
as  I  have  just  done,  we  find  ourselves  changing 
our  mind  about  him  at  every  other  page,  so  uneven 
is  he.  If  we  read  our  favorite  poems  or  passages 
only,  he  will  seem  uniformly  great.  And  even 
as  regards  "  The  Excursion  "  we  should  remember 
how  few  long  poems  will  bear  consecutive  reading. 
For  my  part  I  know  of  but  one,  —  the  Odyssey. 

None  of  our  great  poets  can  be  called  popular  in 
any  exact  sense  of  the  word,  for  the  highest  poetry 
deals  with  thoughts  and  emotions  which  inhabit, 
like  rarest  sea-mosses,  the  doubtful  limits  of  that 
shore  between  our  abiding  divine  and  our  fluctua 
ting  human  nature,  rooted  in  the  one,  but  living  in 
the  other,  seldom  laid  bare,  and  otherwise  visible 
only  at  exceptional  moments  of  entire  calm  and 
clearness.  Of  no  other  poet  except  Shakespeare 
have  so  many  phrases  become  household  words  as 
of  Wordsworth.  If  Pope  has  made  current  more 
epigrams  of  worldly  wisdom,  to  Wordsworth  be 
longs  the  nobler  praise  of  having  defined  for  us, 
and  given  us  for  a  daily  possession,  those  faint  and 
vague  suggestions  of  other-worldliness  of  whose 
gentle  ministry  with  our  baser  nature  the  hurry 
and  bustle  of  life  scarcely  ever  allowed  us  to  be 
conscious.  He  has  won  for  himself  a  secure  im 
mortality  by  a  depth  of  intuition  which  makes  only 
the  best  minds  at  their  best  hours  worthy,  or  indeed 
capable,  of  his  companionship,  and  by  a  homely 
sincerity  of  human  sympathy  which  reaches  the 
humblest  heart.  Our  language  owes  him  gratitude 


WORDSWORTH  415 

for  the  habitual  purity  and  abstinence  of  his  style, 
and  we  who  speak  it,  for  having  emboldened  us  to 
take  delight  in  simple  things,  and  to  trust  ourselves 
to  our  own  instincts.  And  he  hath  his  reward.  It 
needs  not  to  bid 

"  Renowned  Spenser,  lie  a  thought  more  nigh 
To  learned  Chaucer,  and  rare  Beaumond  lie 
A  little  nearer  Spenser  " ; 

for  there  is  no  fear  of  crowding  in  that  little  soci 
ety  with  whom  he  is  now  enrolled  as  fifth  in  the 
succession  of  the  great  English  Poets. 


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